Performing Orthostatic Blood Pressures

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Specializes in ICU.

We often have to do orthostatic blood pressures on our patients. I'm not really sure I'm doing them correctly. If the doc. writes "orthostatic BP's" does that automatically mean lying, sitting, and standing or just lying and standing? How long do you wait between position changes before taking the BP and HR (3min? 5min? both?).

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At the facility I work we do orthostatic bp-lying, sitting, and standing. We record both the BP and the pulse rate. Generally wait 5 min between each. That was also what I was taugh to do. We do these quite frequently is the ER.

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Specializes in ER.

We do it in the ER all the time it seems...we do lying, sitting, standing...with having them lie flat initially for 5 minutes then a 2 minute wait between positions..if the patient gets dizzy with any of the position changes for longer than a minute regardless of vs changes its an automatic +tilt...

Here's a few resources for you...

orthostatics

eval and Treatment of orthostatic hypotension

Emedicine

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Specializes in ICU.

Thank you for the responses. The links were especially helpful. I was at a loss searching online by myself :)

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Hi all,

I just got hired as an extern in a CCU. I am in my last semester of LPN school and will be starting RN school in January. Can ANYONE (I'm not shouting ;) )give me advice? I want to be as big a help as I can, I know the job description, and am aware of my duties. I just really want to do a good job and learn as much as I can. What will the nurses and Docs appreciate the most from an extern?

Thank you! :kiss

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