530 Health Care Skills
How to Take Temperature, Pulse, Respiration,
and Blood Pressure
When a person is sick or has a health problem, her basic physical signs may change.
The next few pages tell how to measure these signs to know if a person has a problem.
Temperature
If you need to know a person’s temperature and do not
have a thermometer, touch the back of your hand to the
person’s skin, and compare it with your own skin. If her skin
feels much warmer, she probably has a fever. To learn what
to do for a fever, see page 297.
If you have a thermometer, you can
Celsius (C)
take a person’s temperature in the
mouth, armpit, or rectum. A person’s
temperature is normally cooler in the
armpit, warmer in the mouth, and
normal
Some
fever
High
fever
warmest in the rectum. There are
2 kinds of thermometer scales. Here
is how they compare. Either can be
used to measure a person’s temperature.
Fahrenheit (F)
The levels listed here for normal and fever
temperatures are for the mouth.
How to take the temperature
(using a thermometer marked in degrees Celsius—°C)
1. Clean the thermometer well with soap and cold water, or alcohol. Hold it at the
end without the silver (or red) and shake it hard, with a snap of the wrist, until it
reads less than 36 degrees.
2. Put the thermometer . . .
under the
tongue
(keep the
mouth
closed
around it)
in the armpit if there is
OR danger that
the person
might
bite the
thermometer
OR
carefully, in the rectum (wet
or apply petroleum gel first).
3. Leave it there for 3 or 4 minutes.
4. Read it (see above).
5. Wash the thermometer well with soap and cold water. Then, if you can, soak it for
20 minutes in a bleach solution (see page 527) and rinse with clean water.
Glass thermometers are filled with mercury, a very poisonous metal. Be careful with
glass thermometers, and if they break, do not pick up the mercury with
your bare hands. Sweep the mercury into a jar and bury it.
Do not let children play with thermometers or
mercury. Get a digital thermometer if you can.
digital
thermometer
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