Blood Pressure: Regulation (Nursing)

00:01 So in order to maintain our blood pressure, it requires the cooperation of our heart, our blood vessels, and our kidneys.

00:11 All of these activities are supervised by the brain.

00:16 There are going to be three main regulating factors for blood pressure.

00:20 These include: cardiac output, peripheral resistance, and the blood volume.

00:27 Our blood pressure is also going to vary directly with the cardiac output, peripheral resistance, and blood volume.

00:36 So if we take a closer look, we see that our blood pressure is equal to our cardiac output times our resistance.

00:44 This shows that the blood pressure or our mean arterial pressure is directly proportional to both of these factors.

00:53 Changes in one of these variables are going to be quickly compensated by changes in the other variable.

01:02 So also, recall that our cardiac output is equal to our stroke volume times our heart rate.

01:10 So if the mean arterial pressure is equal to cardiac output times resistance, then that means that our mean arterial pressure is equal to stroke volume times heart rate times resistance.

01:23 So basically putting this all together, anything that increases our stroke volume, heart rate, or resistance will cause an increase in our mean arterial pressure.

01:35 Recall that the stroke volume is going to be affected by venous return or end diastolic volume.

01:43 Our heart rate is going to be maintained by our medullary centers of the brain.

01:47 And resistance is going to be mostly affected by changes in the vessel diameter.

01:54 So to recap, if we increase our stroke volume, or increase our heart rate.

02:00 These are going to increase our cardiac output.

02:04 As well, if we decrease the diameter of our blood vessels, or increase the blood viscosity, or increase our blood vessel length, these are all going to increase our peripheral resistance.

02:18 So putting it all together, if we increase our cardiac output, or increase our peripheral resistance, these are all going to lead to an increase in our mean arterial pressure.

02:32 So factors that can affect the regulation of our blood pressure include short term regulation by neural controls, short term regulation by hormonal controls, and long term regulation by renal controls in the kidney.