Great, another thing to worry about…
A woman who works as a medical assistant instructor posted a video on TikTok and claimed that most people are getting their blood pressure taken the wrong way when they visit a doctor’s office.
She explained, “In order to accurately take a patient’s blood pressure, they need to be sitting, resting for at least five minutes. Which means if you were sitting in the waiting room for however long, and then you get up, and you walk from the waiting room to the back, and then you sit in a chair, you are no longer sitting for five minutes.”
She added that people need to put their feet flat on the floor and that the patient should have eaten at least 30 minutes before getting it taken.
She continued, “Your patient is supposed to be sitting with their back rested against something. So, if your patient is sitting on one of our beds and they’re sitting up, their back isn’t really being supported, so it’s an inaccurate reading.”
Finally, the woman said, “A lot of people have high blood pressure just walking into a provider’s office due to white coat syndrome. This does not mean that this patient has high blood pressure. It just means that something surrounding them, something that’s happening, has instilled a little bit of fear or anxiety, and during that moment, it causes a spike in their blood pressure.”
Good to know!
Here’s what she had to say.
@favorite_ma_instructor Now there are several other factors that are involved when it comes to obtaining an accurate blood pressure such as the size of the cuff that is being used. bbloodpressurebbloodpressurecheckmmedicalassistantmmedicalassistantlifemmedicalassistantsoftiktokm#medicalassistantstudent
Check out what folks said on TikTok.
This viewer shared their thoughts.
Another person chimed in.
And this TikTokker shared their thoughts.
I guess it’s not as simple as it looks…
If you liked that story, check out this one about a delivery driver who gave two weeks notice… so his employer disabled his truck when he was 300 miles from home!