When is diastolic blood pressure measured?
In normal health care two types of blood pressure is messured;
the diastolic and the systolic.
The systolic blood pressure is the pressure the heart generates
when it contracts and sends out a pulse of blood through the
arteries.
The diastolic pressure is the pressure that resides in the
arteries between heartbeats.
Typical systolic pressure: 120 mmHg
Typical diastolic pressure: 80 mmHg.
Another way of measuring blood pressure is by calculating mean
arterial blood pressure MABP. This is calculated by the formula:
MABP = 1/3 SBP + 2/3 DBP
SBP & DBP being systolic and diastolic blood-pressure.
For a person with 120 / 80 mmHg the mean arterial blood pressure
(MABP) will be:
MABP = (1/3x120) + (2/3x80) = 93mmHg.
The reason for the systolic being 1/3 and the diastolic being
2/3, is that the systolic only presides for 1/3 of the time. The
rest of the time, between two pulses, the diastolic pressure rules,
and that's why it's 2/3.
