Is pulse and Heart rate the same thing?

[northmississippi]

Is pulse and heart rate the same thing?

[MunoRN, RN]

There are two different things. Ideally, the heart rate/ventricular rate matches the pulse, but they are still two different parameters than can vary from each other.

Ventricular heart rate typically refers to the number of ventricular or presumed contractions per minute, usually as read by an EKG monitor. Pulse is how many of those contractions produce a detectible surge of pressure farther down the line. Pulses can vary by location; a patient in bigeminy for instance might have a femoral pulse that is equal to the HR, although with less magnitude on every other beat, while at their pedal pulses those weaker beats might not be detectable, producing a pulse that is one half the HR. Pulses also aren't just a number like HR is, you can have monophasic pulses by doppler, or bounding pulses by palp and many variations in between.

[MunoRN, RN]

There are two different things. Ideally, the heart rate/ventricular rate matches the pulse, but they are still two different parameters than can vary from each other.

Ventricular heart rate typically refers to the number of ventricular or presumed contractions per minute, usually as read by an EKG monitor. Pulse is how many of those contractions produce a detectible surge of pressure farther down the line. Pulses can vary by location; a patient in bigeminy for instance might have a femoral pulse that is equal to the HR, although with less magnitude on every other beat, while at their pedal pulses those weaker beats might not be detectable, producing a pulse that is one half the HR. Pulses also aren't just a number like HR is, you can have monophasic pulses by doppler, or bounding pulses by palp and many variations in between. The potential difference between the two is why we usually check an apical pulse before giving certain meds, it's the closest approximation to HR without rhythm or other advanced monitoring.