The stethoscope is a medicinal apparatus used by health experts to notice the sound. The process involved in perceiving this hum is acknowledged as auscultation.
All work tools must be well maintained and checked before commencing the work, and so do a stethoscope. The following are some of the factors that must be kept well throughout the working of a stethoscope;
- Choose the best stethoscope. This mainly helps to enhance the snooping of your patient’s body. For convenience working single tube, the stethoscope is recommended merely to avoid the noise that may be caused by the rubbing of the tubings, especially in the second tube counterpart.
- Ensure proper fine-tuning of your stethoscope earpiece. The primary motive of this is to ensure that the last face frontward.
- Ensure an apt chest bit for your stethoscope. These may come in varying sizes as well as modifications especially ranging from the newborns to grownups. Therefore, the precise stethoscope that suits a particular need must be identified.
How do you listen to the heart sounds using a stethoscope?
The following are some of the procedures you can follow to perceive heart sounds;
Catch the stethoscope’s diaphragm above the examiner’s heart. Then locate the membrane on the left superior division of the chest mainly where the fourth and sixth ribs meet that is below the breast.
For not less than a minute perceive the heart hums and in the process of making this, request your patient to rest and inhale ordinarily. Normal sounds are indicated by the ‘lub-dub’ sounds which are referred to as the systole and diastole sound respectively. The ‘lub’ sounds are noticed when the mitral and the tricuspid valves close while the ‘dub’ sounds occur when the aortic and the pulmonary valves close.
Any sound that doesn’t resemble the ‘lub-dub’ sound is considered anomalous.
Snooping to the lungs
To perceive any hum from the lungs the patient take a pew upright as well as regular breathes. While understanding the sounds, you may not recognize any humor probably the tones may be so hushed for you to acknowledge any unusual noise. In this way, you advise the patient to take a deep breath.
Alternatively, you can as thoroughly examine the lower and upper lobes of your patient’s lungs by use of the stethoscope to perceive sounds in the parts.
Some sounds such as wheezing, rhonchi, along with stridor sounds indicates unusual sounds.
Under normal conditions, breath sounds are clear and can be categorized into two classes that are; Breath hums mainly from bronchus and the vesicle sounds. The latter sound is perceived from the lung tissues while the first mentioned sound is distinguished from the tracheobronchial tree.
Snooping to the Abdominal hums
Position the diaphragm of the cardiology stethoscope close to your patient’s bare stomach and hear any sound from his or her belly. Note that your patient’s abdomen is divided into four chambers that are, lower and upper chambers which are again divided into left and right chambers for all the two instances to give rise to the four chambers.
The typical sound for this perception is the growling stomachs, much more of that insinuates abnormal conditions.
Snooping for a Bruit
Sounds such as heart murmur merely determine bruits. When this is noticed then, set the stethoscope’s diaphragm beyond the carotid arteries of your patient. This artery is located just on the neck of your patient. If you perceive any whooshing sound, which may be as a result of tapering of the artery you may consider further tests to affirm bruits.
Examining Blood Pressure
Wrap the blood pressure smack on your patient’s arm merely above the elbow. Hard press the stethoscope diaphragm along the brachial artery exclusively under the edge of the cuff. To precisely locate the brachial artery of your patient, identify his or her pulse in his arm. To about 180 mmHg which is higher than the estimated systole blood pressure of your patient, blow up the cuff. Then averagely, dispel the air from the hem while you hear sounds with the stethoscope and at the same time taking note of the reading on the sphygmomanometer.
The first sound presents the patient’s systole blood pressure and is determined by some number in the sphygmomanometer determines. Instantaneously, after this sound is diastolic pressure is noted by the amount it rests at the sphygmomanometer.
Depress the cuff and record the two numbers sorting them out with a slash, i.e., 110/70. When you want to re-measure or take another patient’s measurements, then you will wait for some time before conducting the same.
