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The Blood Pressure Cuffs are an inflatable rubber apparatus that is wound around the upper arm of the patient whose Blood Pressure is to be monitored. It comes along with the Blood Pressure Machine, that also comprises of a Blood Pressure Monitor. The Pressure Cuffs are fitted with a round shaped pumping apparatus that is pumped repeatedly in the initial stage of monitoring pressure in order to inflate the rubber cuff wrapped around the individuals upper arm. Apart from the Blood Pressure Monitor and Cuffs the complete Blood Pressure Machine also have a stethoscope completing the kit. Blood Pressure Cuffs are also designed so as to wrap around the other portions of the body, other than the arm, such as around the thigh and even sometimes around the lower leg just below the knee.

For the measurement of pressure using the Blood Pressure Cuffs in Pressure Machines the common steps taken are as follows:

1.The Blood Pressure Cuffs in the Pressure Machines are wrapped around the arm in the upper portion maintaining the same vertical height as the location of the heart.
2.The Blood Pressure Cuffs are then inflated by pumping air inside on squeezing the rubber ball fitted with it. This is done in order to make the Pressure Cuffs so inflated that it will transiently impede and almost completely hinder the flow of blood in the larger artery.
3.The next step is slow release of air from the Blood Pressure Cuffs and at the same time placing the stethoscope receiver in the cusp of the inner elbow just below the wrapped around Pressure Cuff, checking upon the pulsating swishing sound as the blood starts to flow through the released arterial lumen.
4.This is a very tricky step as mentioned just before because a proper coordination between the air release from the inflated Pressure Cuffs and an accurate monitoring of the stethoscope receiver is required to check the proper fall of the arterial pressure.
5.The pressure readings at the same time comes in the monitor. The reading of the pressure at the appearance of the first sound is systolic pressure and that at the last sound is diastolic pressure reading.

For a detailed look through into the technicalities of the functioning of the Blood Pressure Cuffs, it can be said that the pressure associated with the cuff is similar to the pressure in the arterial lumen. After the first drop in the pressure is noted a systolic sound can be heard in the stethoscope`s sound receiving apparatus. On further fall of the pressure the sound quality changes and soon after the diastolic beat there is no further record of any significant sound heard. These sounds due to rise and eventual fall of the pressure inside the inflatable Blood Pressure Cuffs are known to be the Kortokoff sounds. Conventionally the 1st Kortokoff sound goes along with the systolic pressure reading and the fourth, or, the fifth Kortokoff sound goes with the reading of the diastolic pressure. The normal pressure reading in healthy individuals is 120/80 mm of Hg representing systolic and diastolic pressure points.

Several types of Pressure Cuffs are in wide use presently and the most common ones that come with the Blood Pressure Machine are supposed to be wrapped around the upper arm for a proper monitoring of the Blood Pressure systoles and diastoles. They are

• Blood Pressure Velcro Cuffs with Bladder
• Manual Blood Pressure Cuff / Digital Face
• Omron manual Inflation Blood Pressure Monitor and Cuffs
• Omron automatic Blood pressure Monitor with ComFit Cuff

There are a host of other types of Blood Pressure Cuffs designed to make the tricky task of pressure monitoring easy and accurate. Nowadays portable machines are there with high tech self inflatable cuffs that can even be operated by laymen without any notable hassles.

For more information on Blood Pressure Cuffs stay connected to Hypertension Control (Blood Pressure Control) and Hypertension.