H04 Blood Pressure

This PRO lesson describes hardware and software setup of the BSL PRO System to record (noninvasive) blood pressure response to isometric or straining exercise.

Experimental Objectives

1. To record systolic and diastolic pressure changes during voluntary isometric contractions.
2. To identify and correlate the appearance and the cessation of the Korotkoff sounds to the isometric loads.
3. To visualize and compute the changes in pulse pressure and its relationship to the isometric load.

Tasks Performed by the Student

Record the resting blood pressure values of a subject:

• sitting on a stool and remaining quiet
• doing a leg press

Recording variations:

• isometric blood pressure response in young vs. elderly subjects
• isometric blood pressure response in male vs. female subjects
• isometric blood pressure response induced by upper body contractions vs. lower body contractions
• the effect of food ingestion on blood pressure
• the effect of caffeine ingestion on blood pressure
• the effect of cigarette smoking on blood pressure
• the effect of a full urinary bladder on blood pressure
• the effect of postural changes on blood pressure

Student Prep & Distance Learning

Click the link(s) below for sample data and/or lesson procedure video(s), BSL PRO Lesson procedures (PDF) for human lessons*, and graph template files (*.gtl) for BSL PRO Lessons. If more than one .gtl is available, download the .gtl with the _suffix to match BSL version and hardware.

• BSL PRO Lesson H04 (PDF)
• Graph template for 4 PRO Lesson H04

Lesson Hardware

This lesson requires a Biopac Student Lab (BSL) System and the following hardware. If your BSL System does not include all hardware items, expand your system by selecting required items below. For more details, review the Lesson: L# BSL Lessons - see the Lab Manual or launch BSL; A# and H# BSL PRO Lessons, click the PDF link above to review full setup, recording, and analysis procedures.