Equipment for Doctors and Nurses?

Question

For a course I am taking, I need to find out about the different types of equipment doctors and nurses use to monitor the health of their patients, and what the normal readings are for healthy people.

Any links or good advice is much appreciated, and the best answer will get 10 points

Answer 1

Thermometer - measures temperature, should be 37 degrees Celsius.

Sphygmanometer - measures blood pressure, should be 120/80 for adults.

Pulse oximetry - measures your oxygen saturations - these should be >95% in health.

Electrocardiogram (ECG) - this records an electrical trace of the heart and has certain characteristic patterns it should show relating to the electrical activity of the heart.

There are also much easier things for measuring patients' vital observations, such as measuring the pulse rate (60-100 beats/min and regular in normal people at rest) and respiratory rate (around 12-15 breaths/ min in normal adults). These values can alter depending on patient age and state of physical health.

There are also more complicated means of measuring wellbeing, such as microbiological blood tests (look for infection and cell counts etc), arterial blood gases (which tell you how much oxygen and carbon dioxide you have in your blood, as well as the pH) and urine tests. You can also do scans to monitor how certain diseases are coming along...

I could go on for hours, but I'm not sure how much, and of what, you really want to know.

Answer 2

lets not forget,

Stethoscope: listening to the heart, lung etc...

Otoscope: looking in the ears

Ophthalmoscope: looking in the eyes

Reflex hammer:

of course these days everyone gets (and demands!) a CT scan!