How to Use an Arm Cuff

An arm cuff, more commonly known as a blood pressure cuff, is an instrument that is used by health care professionals to measure a person's blood pressure. It does this by stopping the flow of blood in a patient's arm for several seconds and then measuring the amount of pressure that the blood exerts upon the walls of the patient's blood vessels. The arm cuff is a convenient way to monitor your blood pressure at home and can be particularly useful for patients who have health conditions that can affect blood pressure.

Things You'll Need

• Arm cuff
• Stethoscope

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Instructions

• 1

  Apply the cuff securely so the bottom of the cuff is about 3/4 inches above the elbow crease. There should be no clothes between the cuff and the patient's skin.

• 2

  Place the earpieces of the stethoscope into your ears, making sure the earpieces are angled forward when you do so. Apply the metal piece of the stethoscope to the brachial artery, which is the artery running down the center of the elbow crease.

• 3

  Gradually squeeze the bulb of the arm cuff until you can no longer hear the flow of blood through the brachial artery. When you have reached the point where you can no longer hear blood flow, squeeze the bulb one more time.

• 4

  Gradually let the bulb deflate at a rate of less than 1/10 of an inch per second and continue to listen with the stethoscope. When you hear the first beat, that number on the arm cuff meter is the systolic pressure, which is the top number in a reading.

• 5

  Continue to let the bulb deflate until you can no longer hear the beat. When the beat stops, the number on the arm cuff is your diastolic pressure, or the bottom number of the reading.

• 6

  Compare your two blood pressures to a blood pressure chart. If your systolic/diastolic blood pressure is below 120/80, which is the normal level, you may be experiencing hypotension. Conversely, if your blood pressure is above 140/90, you may be experiencing hypertension