 Hi and welcome to Nursing School Explained and this video on assessment of respiratory rate and pulse or heart rate. We typically combine those two assessments and count each one for 30 seconds. The reason that we do that is because the respirations is one of those vital functions that we actually have control over. So the problem is that if we actually tell our patient that we're going to assess their respiratory rate they are aware of it and they might alter their respiratory rate or frequency or depth because of it. So what we'll do is we'll assess the patient's radial pulse, count it for 30 seconds and then continue to hold our fingers at their radial site but for the next 30 seconds we'll actually pay attention to the patient's chest rise and fall and count their respirations for 30 seconds. Then we'll have to remember both numbers and multiply them by two to have the one minute heart rate and the one minute respiratory rate. So let's go ahead and do that. I'm going to assess your pulse today is that okay? Yes. Okay can I see your arm please? Thank you. So I'll place my fingers right at the patient's radial artery and I want to use my index and middle finger. I want to make sure that I press down firmly enough so that I can feel it but not too firm where I actually could occlude the pulse and basically obstruct the blood flow. Sometimes you have to kind of move the fingers back and forth a little bit just to see where exactly that pulse is. So once you find it then we'll start counting. Thank you. So in this case I counted 24 on the radial site. If I multiply this by two I get 48 which is a little bit on the slow side but for my particular patient I actually know that that's his norm and then for respirations I counted six per minute and if I multiply it by two it gives us 12 respirations per minute and then you would go ahead and record the findings and definitely take care of your patient depending on what the next step will be. Thank you for watching Nursing School Explained and this assessment on pulse and respiratory rate. We'll see you soon.