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Vital signs

  1. What are the vital signs
    • Temperature
    • pulse 
    • blood pressure
    • respiration
  2. What is body temperature?
    Reflects the balance between the heat gained/produced and heat lost from the body-measured in degrees
  3. What is core body temperatures?
    The temperature of deep tissues of body e.g pelvic cavity

    remains constant
  4. What is surface body temperature?
    Temperature of skin, subcutaneous tissue and fat

    Rises and falls in response to environment
  5. What is the normal range of temperature?
    36.5 to 37.2
  6. Apyrexial?
    body temp within normal range
  7. Pyrexia?
    body temp higher than 37.6
  8. Hyperpyrexia?
    A body temperature above 40 degrees
  9. Hypothermia?
    Body temp below 35 degrees
  10. What is the most common type of thermometer?
    Tympanic
  11. What part of the body represents core body temperature?
    • the ear, reflects core body temperature
    • because the tympanic membrane(eardrum) shares it's blood supply with the hypothalamus
  12. What are the sites of temperature checking?
    • Oral- can be inaccurate
    • Axilla- takes long for accurate reading
    • Rectum-accurate invasive
    • Tympanic- core body
  13. What are the internal factors that affect temperature?
    • Age
    • Time

    • Oral intake
    • Exercise
    • Environment
    • Hormones
    • Stress-stimulation
  14. What is a pulse
    • A wave of pressure that can be felt -palpated
    • when an artery crosses a bone
  15. Where is the most common artery and what is it's name?
    • At the wrist,
    • Radial artery
  16. What causes the force of the pulse
    the contraction of the left ventricle
  17. What does the pulse rate equal?
    The heartbeat
  18. What are central pulses?
    pulses located near the central of the body e.g. apical pulse located in the apex of the heart or carotid pulses located in the neck
  19. What are peripheral pulses?
    pulses located away form heart

    waist/foot/etc
  20. What are the 9 pulse sites?
    • Radical pulse
    • Carotid pulse
    • Brachial pulse
    • Apical pulse
    • Temporal pulse
    • Femoral pulse
    • Popliteal pulse 
    • Dorsalis pedis pulse
    • Posterior Tibial pulse
  21. What factors affect the pulse?
    • Age- decreases
    • Exercise
    • Stress
    • Medication
    • Pyrexia- because increased metabolic rate

    Hypovolaemia- loss of blood from vascular system increases pulse rate as body attempts to compensate for blood lost.
  22. What is the pulse rate?
    The amount of pressure waves felt in one minute

    bpm

    60-80bpm
  23. What are the 3 points to consider for pulse rate?
    • rate
    • rhythm
    • volume
  24. What is a tachycardia?
    A fast heart rate (more then 100 bpm)
  25. What is a bradycardia?
    A slow heart rate ( less then 60 bpm)
  26. What is a pulse rhythm?
    Indicates whether a patients heart is beating regularly
  27. What do you call an irregular pulse rhythm?
    Dysrhythmia or arrhythmia
  28. What is pulse volume?
    Refers to the force of blood which can be felt with each pulsation.
  29. How is a pulse palpated?
    By applying moderate pressure with two/three middle fingers of the hand
  30. Why don't you use your thumb?
    It is because already has a pulse
  31. What do you measure for a pulse?
    the rate/rhythm
  32. What increases the pulse rate?
    Pyrexia/fever- because of Increased metabolic rate
  33. What is ventilation?
    The movement of air in and out of the lungs
  34. What factors do you consider for the respiratory rate?
    • rate
    • pattern
    • depth
    • quality
  35. Tachypnoea
    Abnormally fast respirations
  36. Bradypnoea?
    Very slow respirations
  37. Apnoea?
    • Cessation 
    • more than 10-20 seconds
  38. Depth
    Refers to the volume of air that is inhaled and exhaled with each respiration
  39. Dyspnoea?
    Difficult or laboured breathing
  40. Orthopnoea
    patient only able to breathe in upright sitting of standing
  41. What is a wheeze?
    A high pitched abnormal audible sounds that occur on expiration when air moves through a narrowed/partially obstructed airway
  42. What is Blood Pressure?
    • The force of blood inside the blood vessels against the vessel walls
    •  measured in mmHg
  43. What makes a blood pressure?
    The pulsing pressure from the heart
  44. Systolic Pressure?
    The peak pressure occurs when blood is ejected from the heart
  45. Diastolic Pressure?
    When the heart relaxes, the blood remaining in the arteries exerts a minimum pressure
  46. What is used to measure BP
    non-invasive sphygmomanometer and cuff
Author
cat126
ID
353819
Card Set
Vital signs
Description
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