What is Venous Pressure?

Blood pressure is a major factor in everyday health for a great deal of people. When you go to the doctor, one of the first things they do is check your blood pressure. Blood pressure machines are available in drug stores and at-home tests are readily available so you can check your own blood pressure at your own convenience. It is such an important aspect of a person’s health that a change in your blood pressure could alert a health professional to a much more serious problem. However, the pressure that most people read as blood pressure is the pressure of the blood against the artery. There is another blood pressure, venous pressure, which measures the pressure of blood in either a vein or in the atria of the heart.

Veins and arteries are similar vessels through which blood is transferred throughout the body. The reason that arterial blood pressure is usually looked at is because it has much more strength than venous pressure, which can be hard to detect at times. Arteries are much bigger than veins, so they transfer more blood. However, there are many more veins than there are arteries, so it is important in many health-related cases to see how hard the blood is pumping through groups of vein. An atria of the heart, of which there are two, has the same pressure, so when heart problems occur in a patient, health professionals look to venous pressure as well as arterial pressure in order to tell them what is wrong.

While arterial blood pressure can be easily taken through non-invasive measures, such as using a cuff around the upper arm, venous pressure must be taken using invasive measures. This means a needle with a long tube attached to it must be inserted into the vein in order for the pressure to be taken. Average and safe values for venous pressure depends on which atrium the pressure is taken from. The right atria should be around 5 mmHg, while venous pressure in the left atria should be taken at around 8 mmHg.

Measuring the pressure in the venous system is important in intensive care situations, where patients are in very bad shape. This will give medical professionals more specific information on the workings of the heart and blood system. While arterial pressure is still much more commonly checked for, one can’t look away from the importance venous pressure plays in health.