Taking Blood Pressure: Storyboard Concept Report

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There are set processes in which storyboards are created for instance for films and animations either for study or for educational purposes. Being skeletons that give a step-by-step view of what is expected for any given procedure; storyboards become centrally important tools that assist the understanding of complex procedures that would otherwise be reserved for professionals and academicians alone.

For this assignment, the concept of storyboards is used as a lesson for how to take blood pressure and in doing so, the paper will discuss details of the importance of consistent taking of readings of one’s blood pressure as well as discussing some of the equipment that are used in the process of taking and checking blood pressure. This means that this storyboard will be a lesson dubbed: Taking Blood Pressure.

Introduction Page

Before delving into the processes that were arrived at in the making of the storyboard fort taking blood pressure, it is appropriate first of all to briefly describe what exactly is meant by storyboarding process. The creation of this storyboard is created in a number of steps so as to come up with a creative and useful thing.

The history of storyboards has been that they can be created either by hand or other designers have used digitized computer programs to draw and design them (Struijk, Mathews & Loupas, 2008). For the case that the storyboard is created by hand, the practice has been that the first step is to get a template which may either be downloaded or drawn manually.

For cases where the designers and producers require details in their designs that are of greater content, storyboard artists usually prepare the storyboards either by a way of hand or by using special programs that are used to draw storyboards in two dimensions (Struijk, Mathews & Loupas, 2008).

There are other software that may be used to create superior storyboards that contain greater details that express the exact intentions of the story as presented by the producer and director of the film or animation. After properly preparing these storyboards, they are usually presented to the given project management which forwards to its cinematographer who sees that what has been created achieves the vision and intentions of the director (Struijk, Mathews & Loupas, 2008).

Having briefly discussed what storyboards are and how they are created, the next important area of discussion is the subject of the storyboard taken for this paper and this is Taking Blood Pressure. First of all, blood pressure is a human condition which medically is generally described as the pressure that builds in the blood vessels due to the blood circulating in them after being pumped by the heart.

The heart usually pumps in two basic ways that creates moments of highest pressure called the systolic pressure and one that creates moments of the lowest pressure called the diastolic pressure in the blood vessels (Booth, 2007). This pressure is highest in the blood vessels that are closest to the heart and continually decreases slowly as the blood flows further from the heart. This decrease is caused by the resistance of the walls of these blood vessels such as arteries as the blood flows in them.

The body vessels that carry blood around the body usually decrease in size systematically as they approach specific organs where the blood is to deliver its products of respiration and these final blood vessels are usually tiny and therefore when blood enters them, its pressure reduces substantially such that by the time the blood is circulating back to the heart through the veins, its pressure barely moves it back to the heart for the process to begin again.

Valves are features of veins which prevent back flow of blood when a person is standing upright since the pressure in these veins is usually significantly low (Booth, 2007).

It is observable from the foregoing explanation that when there is a problem with the blood pressure, it may lead to catastrophic problems for someone since this pressure is imperative to be sufficient to carry the blood around the body but again not too much to injure (and at times burst) the arterial walls.

It is common practice to take the blood pressure of a person from the brachial artery which is usually located on the inside of the elbow since this is among the most sensitive parts of a human body that reflects the most accurate arterial pressure of a person. This pressure is usually expressed as a fraction of the systolic pressure over the diastolic pressure in millimeters of mercury (mmHg) such as 138/87.

It is very important to ensure that one’s blood pressure is regularly checked to ensure that it is within the medically safe region since when it is not put in check, it may lead to hypertension which is a condition where the arterial blood pressure is too high that it risks causing heart diseases and other related diseases that may lead to abrupt death.

According to Booth (2007), the generally accepted blood pressure reading that are considered normal in the medical world usually range around 120 over 80 where the first number is the systolic reading and the second number is the diastolic reading written as a fraction as earlier on indicated (Booth, 2007).

It is generally considered that pre-hypertensive states are observed when one’s pressure is anywhere between 120 and 139 over anywhere between 80 and 89 and high blood pressure (hypertension) is considered when one’s reading clocks anywhere between 140 and 159 over anywhere between 90 and 99 (Booth, 2007).

There are critical phases of hypertension where patients record readings as high as 160 and above over 100 and above and usually these stages are so critical that death may occur very easily through heart attacks and related conditions.

It is however appropriate to mention that merely having elevated blood pressure readings does not necessary mean that one has hypertension since there are other factors that may lead to elevated blood pressure readings and this factors include times where the immune system is low caused by illness or an infection or even due to stress (Booth, 2007).

This notwithstanding, it is very important to keep close track of one’s blood pressure since there are basically no known symptoms that can distinctively be said to the signs of high blood pressure or other related blood pressure conditions. Known symptoms at time as usually as mild as simply having difficult in sleeping, dry mouth or even emotional upsets.

The commonest symptom however that is observed in all blood pressure patients is having headaches and even this is not a final pointer of hypertension as there are just as many who experience excruciating headaches and yet do not suffer from hypertension (Booth, 2007). This means that it is imperative to get medical advice whenever there is something that is feared to be blood pressure related rather than merely speculating about it.

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There are different parts of a human body that are generally prone to blood pressure related problems which makes it very important to be careful with how this pressure is observed and monitored. The two commonest conditions that result in blood pressure are high blood pressure (hypertension) and low blood pressure (hypotension) conditions.

This notwithstanding, any pressure resisting blood flow in the arteries strains the arterial walls and that only has its potential risks that cannot be overlooked. High pressure against the blood flow usually increases the rate at which the heart has to work to meet the same demand of body organs of the supply of blood and this usually leads to unhealthy tissues called atheroma to grow within the walls of the arteries.

Continued increased blood pressure causes the heart muscles to overgrow with additional tissues that make it generally weak and this becomes a prime recipe for strokes, heart failures, heart attacks and what is called arterial aneurysms; a major cause of chronic renal failure (Booth, 2007).

On the contrary, hypotension is not usually a big medical bother unless it reaches critical levels that cause dizziness and/or fainting (Booth, 2007). This happens when the arterial pressure reduces so much to a critical level where the perfusion of the brain is changed to become extremely decreased which means that there is insufficient supply of blood to it.

This should however not be confused by orthostatic hypotension which is a condition where gravity in some cases reduces blood pressure significantly when someone stands up from a sitting position and in the process may experience dizziness as a result of reduced cardiac output due to reduced stroke volume. Other causes of hypotension include sepsis, blood loss, eating disorders like anorexia nervosa, and hormonal abnormalities like the case of Addison’s disease and among others (Booth, 2007).

There are different ways that are used in taking blood pressure and this can be either at home (for personal regular checkups) or in a hospital (in the event that there is real concern to warrant medical attention).

All of these procedures, taking of the readings is usually simply done by using special equipment that when strapped to different parts of the body (especially the inner side of an arm around the elbow point or on the tip of a finger) show the readings of the blood displayed as a fraction with the systolic reading presented over the diastolic reading (Booth, 2007).

Some of the common equipment that are used include the aneroid monitor which has a dial gauge that shows reading via a pointer and the other common one is the digital blood pressure monitor which can either have automatic or manual cuffs and usually has an in-built stethoscope that helps it to flash its reading on a digital screen (Booth, 2007).

Another equipment that is used in hospitals is the sphygmomanometer which uses the height of a mercury column to indicate its readings that are given in millimeters of mercury (mmHg). The figure below shows some of these equipments.

Figure 1. Types of Equipment that are used to measure blood pressure

Auscultatory Sphygmomanometer with stethoscope	Mercury Manometer
Sphygmomanometer	Omron Hem 907 Xl Professional Blood Pressure Monitor

Enabling Objectives

The following are the enabling objectives for lesson on taking Blood Pressure.

• Simplicity – it was desirable to ensure that the lesson that is presented is simple to follow and understand for ease of design and production.
• Cost effectiveness – this is an objective that required that the storyboard’s cost as compared to its quality and usage measures up to a given margin that is meaningful and rational.
• Relevance – this was an objective that required that the storyboard is relevant for the purpose for which it is designed which was to work as a lesson for taking blood pressure readings.
• Social interactiveness – this objective was to ensure that the lesson was acceptable in the cases of its diverse audience were critical about it. It was intended to identify with the social networks of the persons that would be reached by it.

Instructional Unit

The following are four core questions that are presented to gauge the understanding of this lesson to anyone who partakes in it. They are true of false questions.

1. Blood Pressure is a condition that is difficult to observe and one that does not have distinct symptoms.
   1. True
   2. False
2. The process of taking blood pressure requires professional training and therefore people with such knowledge cannot take blood pressure readings.
   1. True
   2. False
3. Anytime there is a slight deviation in the blood pressure taken is an indication that there is either hypertension or hypotension and therefore one needs get serious medical attention.
   1. True
   2. False
4. Blood pressure is a condition that when left to get to critical levels can become lethal and even cause death through strokes, heat failures and heart attacks.
   1. True
   2. False

References

Booth, J. (2007). A Short History of Blood Pressure Measurement. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 70(11), 793–799.

Struijk, P., Mathews, V.J., & Loupas, T. (2008). Blood Pressure Estimation in the Human Fetal Descending Aorta. Ultrasound Obstet Gynecol 32(5), 673–681.