Korotkoff sounds

Under a Korotkoff sound (after Nikolai Sergeyevich Korotkov ) refers to the sound that can be heard in a blood pressure reading with a stethoscope ( auscultation ). When inflating the blood pressure cuff, the artery is pressed off. The pulse-synchronous noise that can be heard during slow releasing the pressure in the cuff is called Korotkoff sounds. It involves Verwirbelungsgeräusche during a turbulent blood flow, which can be heard only in a partial compression of the artery. If they occur ( time point A in the figure ), but blood can enter the diastole of the heart again flow through the vessel in systole not yet. The disappearance ( at the time B in the figure ) in the further release of the pressure, there is no compression on the vessel; the blood then flows turbulence ( laminar) and so noiseless through the vessel.

The pressure at which the noise occurs, corresponds to the systolic (upper) blood pressure, the diastolic one that the disappearance of the (lower ) value.

Nikolai Sergeyevich Korotkov, a Russian army doctor in 1905 improved by the use of the stethoscope for auscultation of Korotkoff sounds, the method of Riva - Rocci In contrast to this was now the diastolic blood pressure can be estimated. Korotkov divided to listening noises in addition, so that strictly speaking five different Korotkoff sounds can be distinguished.