Pulse
Tactile arterial palpation of the heartbeat by trained fingertips / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Pulse?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
In medicine, a pulse represents the tactile arterial palpation of the cardiac cycle (heartbeat) by trained fingertips. The pulse may be palpated in any place that allows an artery to be compressed near the surface of the body, such as at the neck (carotid artery), wrist (radial artery), at the groin (femoral artery), behind the knee (popliteal artery), near the ankle joint (posterior tibial artery), and on foot (dorsalis pedis artery). Pulse (or the count of arterial pulse per minute) is equivalent to measuring the heart rate. The heart rate can also be measured by listening to the heart beat by auscultation, traditionally using a stethoscope and counting it for a minute. The radial pulse is commonly measured using three fingers. This has a reason: the finger closest to the heart is used to occlude the pulse pressure, the middle finger is used get a crude estimate of the blood pressure, and the finger most distal to the heart (usually the ring finger) is used to nullify the effect of the ulnar pulse as the two arteries are connected via the palmar arches (superficial and deep). The study of the pulse is known as sphygmology.
This article needs additional citations for verification. (December 2008) |
Pulse | |
---|---|
Organisms | Animalia* |
Biological system | Circulatory system |
Action | Involuntary |
Method | Heart pumps blood using reciprocating method causing inconstant blood flow throughout the circulatory system that can be recognized. (See Cardiac cycle) |
Frequency | 60–100 per minute (humans) |
Duration | 0.6–1 second (humans) |
Animalia with the exception of Porifera, Cnidaria, Ctenophora, Platyhelminthes, Bryozoan, Amphioxus. |