Kezia Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 Challenge math for upper elementary and middle school (p.50 #9) says to take the person’s age/2 and add 110 would be a normal systolic bp for a person of that age. I can find nothing else anywhere that gives a formula like that for normal blood pressure as one ages. I don’t remember that ever being true… How many other challenge math formulas should I be wary of? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ducks Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 Years ago they used to say 100 plus your age was the upper limit of acceptable blood pressure (I am an Australian GP, trained in the 90s). But it must have been back in the 1970s or early 1980s as when I trained the older lecturers would say this as an anecdote of outdated ideas. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alice Posted March 4, 2022 Share Posted March 4, 2022 For kids (I'm a pediatrician) we learned the rough estimate of 90 + 2 (Age in years) as a rough estimate for median BP. But we also have BP tables that are by height, which is more important than age in determining if a BP is abnormal. Height roughly correlates with age also so I guess that's where the age thing came from. The other problem with the formula you posted is that for adults a normal BP doesn't increase that much with age. By that standard an 80 year old would have a normal SBP of 150 which is just not true. Plus, what is meant by "normal"...do they mean median or mean or maximum that is considered ok? If they are presenting it as a "formula" that is always true, that's wrong. If it's an example of a way to roughly estimate something, it's ok. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 I would take my medical advice from a math textbook. If some out of date formula is used for some math problem I don't generally sweat it. I may google it and have a laugh. I would be wary of any biological formulas from any math textbook, except insofar as the math is concerned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kezia Posted March 5, 2022 Author Share Posted March 5, 2022 As far as the math, that formula was very simple and straight forward compared to other problems in that same section. My child probably didn’t think twice about it and was just happy for an easy problem. The problem bothered me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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