A Difference on Pulse Rate between Patients of Various Ages and Sexes - Assignment Example

Introduction When a creature is ified as alive, one essential sign is its pulse rate. The beating causes pulse rate. The heart pumps blood all through out the body which causes a throbbing sensation in your wrist. The pulse rate of an individual can vary depending on its condition or health. You can check an individual's pulse rate by measuring its rate and rhythm. Objective: In this study we will determine whether there is a difference pulse rate between male and female or old and young, to be able to do this, an experiment is conducted. Significance: We will be able to know the variations of pulse rate in relation to ages and sexes. Hypothesis: 1. Ho: There is no significant difference on pulse rate between two sexes (male and female). Ha: There is a significant difference on pulse rate between two sexes (male or female). 2. Ho: There is no significant difference on pulse rate between adult and children. Ha: There is a significant difference on pulse rate between adult and children. Review of Related Literature: Pulse is the number of heartbeat per minute (Habits of Heart, 2000). Pulse rate is determined to test how well your heart is. It is the pumping of the heart with blood that causes pulse rate. As your heart beats and forces blood through your body, you can feel a throbbing sensation (the pulse) by putting your fingers over one of your arteries at any point where the artery comes close to the surface of your skin, such as your wrist, neck, or upper arm. It is one of the measurement physicians do when they do check up to their patience (HealthWise Inc., 2006). By taking your pulse rate, you can check the rhythmtic stretching of arteries caused by the pressure of blood driven by the powerful contractions of the ventricles by your heart (Campbell, 2002). Connected to pulse rate is blood pressure. The measure of force of blood exerted in the walls of blood vessels is called blood pressure. Every ventricular systole, the heart pushes blood into the arteries, and the pressure reaches a maximum called the systolic pressure. When the ventricles relax, the blood pressure in the arteries drops to a smallest value called the diastolic pressure (Seeley, 2002). Many factors affect a person's normal heart rate, including age, activity level, and time of day (Online Ambulance, 2005). Since the blood pressure of an individual varies it is a must to establish normal values. The table below shows the normal values (Habits of Heart, 2000): Range of Heart Rates per Minute and Average Heart Rate for Various Ages Age Range Average Rate 0-1 month 100-180 2-3 months 110-180 4-12 months 80-180 1-3 years 80-160 (130) 4-5 years 80-120 (100) 6-8 years 70-115 (100) 9-11 years 60-110 (88) 12-16 years 60-110 (80) >16 years 50-90 (70) Range of Heart Rates per Minute and Average Rate for two Sexes Methodology: An experiment will be conducted to measure pulse rate variation. A method is adopted from PennHealth (2005). All you need is a wristwatch or a digital stopwatch. You can measure your pulse rate anywhere an artery passes close to the skin, such as your wrist, neck, temple area, groin, behind the knee, or top of the foot. Most people use the wrist. Place your index and middle finger over the underside of your opposite wrist, below the base of the thumb. If it is hard to feel the pulse in your wrist, place your index and middle finger just to the side of your Adam's apple, in the soft hollow area at the side of your neck. With the flat part of your fingers rather than the tips, press firmly, but not so hard that you can't feel the pulse. If you are taking someone else's pulse, do not use your thumb or you will feel your own pulse along with the other person's. Count the number of beats for 30 seconds, then multiply that number by 2 to get the beats per minute. Or count the number of beats for 15 seconds, then multiply by 4 to get the beats per minute. If you are taking your pulse during exercise, you may count the beats for only 10 seconds and multiply by 6. In this activity, there are 10 pulse rate measurements of males and 10 pulse rate measurements females measured. There are 5 children (ages 6-10 in any sexes) and 5 adult (ages 20-35 in any sexes). Results Here is the result of the experiment: Table1. Pulse rate of 10 males and 10 females. Male Pulse rate (Bpm) Female Pulse rate (Bpm) 1 60 1 85 2 56 2 80 3 65 3 90 4 56 4 95 5 61 5 93 6 64 6 95 7 60 7 90 8 58 8 89 9 60 9 96 10 65 10 89 Ave 60.5 82.1 Graph showing the differences between two sexes. Series 2 - Male, Series 4 - Female Table1. Pulse rate of 5 adult and 5 children. Adult Pulse rate (Bpm) Children Pulse rate (Bpm) 1 (age 22) 90 1 (age 6) 80 2 (age 26) 85 2 (age 8) 81 3 (age 30) 100 3 (age 5) 82 4 (age 20) 89 4 (age 5) 80 5 (age 22) 86 5 (age 7) 81 Ave 90 80.8 Graph showing the differences between two sexes. Series 2 - Adult, Series 4 - Children Conclusion: With this experiment we can see the differences of the ranges among sexes and age for pulse rate. Females have higher level of pulse rate than male while children have lower pulse rate level than adult. Therefore, reject all null hypotheses and accept all alternative hypotheses. Work Cited Campbelle (2002). Biology (6th ed.) (pp. 876-877). U.S.A.: Pearson Education, Inc. Seeley (2002). Essentials of Anatomy and Physiology (4th ed.) ( p. 356). U.S.A.: McGrawhill Company. Habits of Heart (2000). Pulse of life (A web text). http://www.smm.org/heart/lessons/lesson1.htm. HealthWise Inc. (2006). Pulse Measurement (A web text).http://www.webmd.com/hw/heart_disease/hw233473.asp Online ambulance (2005). Pulse Measurement Result. PennHealth (2005). Pulse rate (A web text). http://www.pennhealth.com/ency/article/003399.htm. Read More