ABSTRACT: Blood pressure (BP) is one of the most useful measurements of cardiovascular function available to the veterinary team. It is defined as the pressure exerted by blood on the wall of a blood vessel (Tortora & Grabowski, 1993) and is made up of systolic and diastolic components. Systolic pressure is created at the end of the cardiac cycle, when the ventricles are contracting and the pressure in the arteries is at its highest. Diastolic pressure describes the point at the beginning of each cardiac cycle when the ventricles are relaxing and the pressure is at its lowest.

Author

Claire Roberts RVN DipAVN(surg) VNCertECC

Claire qualified as a veterinary nurse in 2000 and has worked in first opinion, charity and referral practices. She gained the Diploma in Advanced Surgical Nursing in 2006 and has a keen interest in surgical nursing and anaesthesia. She strongly believes in veterinary nursing as a profession and has worked as a lecturer and an assessor; as well as an internal verifier and assistant examiner for the RCVS. Claire currently works at a specialist practice in Cheshire, while running her own CPD company SynergyCPD (www.synergycpd.com), which specialises in bespoke, on-site CPD for veterinary nurses.

Email: claire.roberts@synergycpd.com

Keywords: Monitoring, Clinical, Blood pressure 

To cite this article: Veterinary Nursing Journal • VOL 31 (07) • July 2016 pp218-221

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