For the past six years, under the leadership of Marty Fraga, Cal State East Bay nursing students have been making a difference in the lives of our Meals On Wheels clients. Through her CSUEB course, Public and Community Health, Clinical, Marty’s students conduct in-home quarterly assessments that include health, medication and home safety checks. In July 2010, we added a new component to the assessment, a pilot program that helps seniors learn about hypertension and the importance of monitoring their blood pressure. People who enroll in the program are given a blood pressure monitor and receive training on how to use it.

Of the 200 people who have been told about the program, 53 have agreed to participate. A few people have initially said no to joining because they get their blood pressure checked when they visit their doctor. But a person’s blood pressure goes up and down during the course of a day. To demonstrate this, the student takes their blood pressure at the beginning of the visit and again at the end so they can see the difference.

The nursing students have found a surprising number of people who have purchased a blood pressure cuff in the past but rarely use it. They may have done a reading once or twice when they first got it, but then never bothered to use it again. Other people have the cuff but don’t want to use it because if the reading is high, they think they will feel too stressed. A few people have said they don’t think it’s important to know what their blood pressure is. But like diabetes, high blood pressure can easily go undetected, and the complications from not knowing can be deadly.

The pilot program helps older adults see that monitoring can be both simple and affordable. Participants are initially asked to record three readings per day - morning, noon and evening, and then choose the time when it is highest to check their blood pressure every day. By keeping logs of their daily readings, the participants can give their doctors a much closer look at how their blood pressure varies throughout the day.

“Blood pressure monitoring should be an integral part of every older person’s health routine,” said one of the students. ”It’s easy to do, affordable and it puts you in control of managing your own health.”