In a primary health assessment, many approaches are used in the collection of data to be used for research purposes. These methods include collecting daily information from different patients suffering from various diseases. A medical practitioner enters information of the patient to software that is available to be used in the analysis. Another approach used is the collection of community and census data. Different health authorities have a varied range of information that is collected from small areas at the community level in different estates. Thirdly another method required in primary health assessment is involving the public through conducting interviews with patients, health meetings, carrying out discussions with the locals, and the opening of complaint and suggestion boxes to retrieve information. Fourthly is conducting (or using an available) survey; A well-organized survey can relevant information about health parameters to be used in data analysis through sampling. Finally obtaining information from various resources like findings from meetings of different health parameters attended by medical practitioners (Hall, 2015).
Various normal health parameters available are blood pressure, temperature, respiration, and pulse rate. According to medical reports available from various health hospitals, normal blood pressure for an adult aged (30-40) years of age is 120/80 mmHg up to 139/89 mmHg. The one who records a rate of 140mmHg shows that their blood pressure is high. The high increase in blood pressure in these adults results in heart attacks which are a cardiovascular diseases. Normal body temperature for this age group ranges from 36.5 degree Celsius to 37.2 degrees Celsius. Any rating above or below these readings is considered to be abnormal body temperature. Resources show that a normal health person (adult) should have a pulse rate ranging from 60 to 85 beats per minute. Respiration rate refers to the number of breaths a person takes per minute. A normal adult should have a respiratory rate ranging from 16 to 20 breaths per minute (O’leary & Peat, 2015).
Q2. Describe differences in normal health parameters (blood pressure, temperature, respiration and pulse rate) for the older adult aged 72 and child aged 6-10 years.
Pulse rate
Children tend to have a higher pulse rate compared to adults. A child aged 6 to 10 years has an average pulse rate ranging from 60 to 110 beats per minute whereas an adult aged above 72 years has a pulse rate of 55 to 85 beats per minute (Barcroft, 2015).
Respiratory rate
As to pulse rate, also respiratory rate decreases with age. In the sense that a child will have a higher respiratory rate compared to a mature and old adult. Records show that children aged 6 to 10 years have an average respiratory rate ranging from 20 to 25 breaths per minute while an aged or adult person has a respiratory rate of 16 to 20 breaths per minute when they are normal and resting (Overfield, 2017).
Temperature rates.
Normal body temperatures do not vary very much with age, though resources show that a slight difference exists between children and adults. For a child aged 6 to 10 years, their normal body temperature ranges from 95.9F to 99.5F while older adults have body temperature ranging from 97.6F to 99F (Barcroft, 2015).
Blood Pressure
Blood pressure acts in the opposite way as compared to pulse and respiratory rate. Statistics show that blood pressure tends to increase with age. Children aged 6 to 10 years have a blood pressure of 95/60 mmHg to 105/65 mmHg whereas a normal adult has a blood pressure ranging from 120/80 mmHg to 139/89 mmHg (Hall, 2015).
References
Barcroft, J. (2015). Features in the architecture of physiological function. Cambridge University Press.
Hall, J. E. (2015). Guyton and Hall textbook of medical physiology e-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.
O’leary, F., Hayen, A., Lockie, F., & Peat, J. (2015). Defining normal ranges and centiles for heart and respiratory rates in infants and children: a cross-sectional study of patients attending an Australian tertiary hospital paediatric emergency department. Archives of Disease in Childhood, archdischild–2014.
Overfield, T. (2017). Biological variation in health and illness: race, age, and sex differences. CRC Press.
