[BLANK_AUDIO]. >> Hi, we're here in the sim lab today.

We're going to talk about

assessing heart
rate and pulse, and we're going to talk a little bit about
the difference between the two as well as some
places on the body that you can check a pulse. So, thanks for joining us. And, the
first thing I want to say is,
have you ever checked your own pulse? >> Yeah, I check my carotid pulse after I
exercise. >> Same here, I check my radial pulse
after I finish dance practice. >> I actually check my radial pulse while
I'm running just to make sure I'm staying in a good
training level. >> Yeah, so. >> During my run. >> It's very common for people to
check
their own pulse and it's something that a lot of us do on a
pretty regular basis. So it's good to know how to do, but when a
healthcare provider is checking your pulse, they are
also you know, doing the same as you, counting the heart rate, but
they're also thinking and assessing for some other things, so we'll talk a
little bit about that today. But, first Jane, can you tell us what is
the heart rate? >> Well, the heart rate's the number of
time your heart beats per minute. >> Right, and Stacy, can you tell us then,
what is the pulse? >> Mm, I think the pulse is when your
heart beats, the ventricle ejects blood during systole and makes the artery
distend and then during diastole the blood just is flowing regularly, and
that's when the artery retracts. >> Right. Great! >> Great explanation! That was
good. >> Very good explanation. >> Yeah. >> So >> And it's which kind of arteries
have
that ability to distend and retract? >> Elastic arteries? >> The elastic arteries,
yep. Good job. >> Right, so when we check a pulse, what
we're doing is we're pushing against an elastic artery, and
we're pushing it against the firm, underlying
tissue. So that allows us to feel the pulsations
as they run through the blood, the artery or the
blood vessel. Do you think that the pulse and the heart
rate are always the same? >> Not necessarily. I think in typical people with normal
cardiovascular function your heart rate and your pulse rate would be
the same. But however, in some patients with like
cardiovascular defects they might not have the ability for the heart to pump
that strong pulse throughout the rest of the body,
which could cause patients to have poor perfusion and to have like a
weaker pulse. >> Right. That's great. >> Yes. >> So, typically the heart rate and
the
pulse, as you said, are exactly the same in a normal person
with healthy cardiovascular function. But, if somebody's heart is not able to
con, contract strongly enough to create blood flow to the peripheral areas
of the body or the, the parts of the body that are far away from the heart
then you might not feel a pulsation for every beat of the heart if
that heart beat is weak. And also, if there's problems with the
arteries if for some reason blood is not flowing
through them well, you might not get a pulsation in that
artery when you get, when you have a beat in the
heart. So, that was a great explanation. So let's talk about some different places
that we can check the pulse. The first one that I'll go over is the
carotid as we've already talked about and that's
located here at the neck. Now typically a healthcare provider won't
really be checking the carotid artery we can check it other
places. We might sometimes but it's a common one
that people do on themselves and you just need to be careful not to put too
much pressure, as we mentioned before. The other places that healthcare providers
do commonly check are the brachial artery that's here at the
antecubital fossa. >> Oh, Megan, I think you might have to
explain what the antecubital fossa is. >> Well, that's where the arm bends at the
elbow, so right here in this area. The other place on arm that the pulse is
commonly check is the radial pulse here,
the wrist. And another common place to check the
pulse is at the femoral artery, and that's located at the
bend of the hip, so where the thigh connects to the body,
and if you place two fingers there, you should be
able to feel a pulsation. And this is a common assessment to use in
pediatrics, and especially with babies. The next place that I'll show is at the
foot. So there's two locations here that are
commonly checked. The first is the dorsalis pedis, and
that's here at the top middle portion of the
foot. And the other is the posterior tibial,
which is located just below and behind the knob on the, on
the ankle. And so these are common pulse assessments
if, if somebody has suspected peripheral vascular disease, where the blood is not
flowing well through the arteries because you might not be able to feel a pulse in
that location if somebody has poor blood flow or you might
just feel a very weak pulse. And so, those are the things that we're
thinking about when we're checking the pulse in addition
to the heart rate. >> And they would be weaker here because these arteries are
further away from the
heart. They're-. >> Right, and if there's something blocking good blood flow and
because it's further away from the heart, correct. [BLANK_AUDIO]