What are the Uses of a Finger Pulse Oximeter?

ByMed guard

After the pandemic period, most of us became familiar with finger pulse oximeters. While getting ourselves checked up at hospitals or by doctors, most of us have seen and experienced this device. This small device can show your oxygen level in the body and pulse rate in just the blink of an eye. Most of us know this fact about oximeters. But there are so many other things related to this device which we don’t know. To learn more about oximeters, you have to understand their uses first. Here we are going to elaborately discuss all the uses of this miraculous device for your reference. Let’s start with a brief idea about this device. 

 

What is a Finger Pulse Oximeter? 

Pulse Oximeter is one of the commonly used devices that can be clipped onto a patient’s fingers and it can tell you the body’s oxygen saturation level and pulse rate. Two wavelengths of light are used to determine the blood saturation level and pulse rate. The entire process is completely painless and it only needs a few minutes to display the result on the digital panel of the device. 

 

What are the Uses of a Finger Pulse Oximeter?

There are so many purposes where you can use a Finger Pulse Oximeter.

    • Can be used for some patients who have health conditions where fluctuations of oxygen level in the body are possible. 
    • In lung treatments to ensure whether the medication is working or not.
  • Is one of the respiratory care products to check oxygen levels for patients who have asthma and other respiratory diseases. 
    • To check if the ventilation is working properly or not.
    • To check if the oxygen level of the patient is sufficient or if they need an emergency oxygen supply. 
    • To ensure the supplemental oxygen therapy is working as perfectly or not for new treatments especially. 
    • To keep an eye on BP and oxygen saturation levels during high-intensity workouts so that we can determine how much physical exhaustion someone can bear.
    • To determine some rarely found diseases related to sleep. For example – sleep apnea.
    • During critical illness treatments like – pneumonia, lung cancer, anaemia, heart attack or heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), congenital heart disease etc. 
  • A finger pulse oximeter can also be used as a daily health diagnosis to always keep a check on body blood pressure, pulse rate and oxygen saturation level. 

How to Use a Finger Pulse Oximeter? 

If you have your own finger pulse oximeter then with the help of the following instructions you can easily use it –

  • Step 1

First, you need to turn on the device as instructed in the user manual. 

  • Step 2

Now after turning on the device you need to wait for a few minutes to allow the device to start properly. 

  • Step 3

To allow the device to work properly, you must ensure that your hand is warm. 

  • Step 4

Now, you need to attach the device at the fingertip. But to which finger you are going to attach the device should not have any sort of artificial nail or nail paint. 

  • Step 5

Keep your finger in the upward direction during the test. 

  • Step 6

Your fingers should be below your heart level and you should hold it still. 

  • Step 7

Wait for a few seconds and your oxygen level, and pulse rate will be seen in the digital panel of the finger pulse oximeter. 

 

Conclusion 

Now that we have understood the uses of pulse oximeters, this device is an extremely useful aid that we should keep with us in case we have elderly people or seriously ill people at our home. During the pandemic phase, when there were so many critical COPD cases, this small device worked as a miracle alongside other respiratory care products. Also, oximeters are not very expensive and are now easily available. So, you can always have your device.