NEW YORK, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- More often than not, patients and even nurses and doctors are skipping steps that help paint an accurate portrait of someone's blood pressure -- how someone sits and positions their arm, whether they just had a cup of joe or chitchat with their practitioner during the measurement, and other factors can produce readings that are higher or lower than normal blood pressure.

"To really make a dent at improving people's cardiovascular health, we need to screen and treat people for hypertension, but we need to do it correctly," Tammy Brady, a pediatric nephrologist at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore who studies blood-pressure measurement and cardiovascular health in children and adults, told The Wall Street Journal.

"Getting the right reading is important for preventing heart attacks, strokes and other potentially fatal conditions," noted the newspaper on Monday.

What does it take to get the reading right? The patient should sit with both feet on the ground, legs uncrossed, back straight and your arm supported on a table or other surface, according to guidelines from the American Heart Association and other organizations.

"A cuff should be positioned over your bare arm at the level of your heart. You shouldn't talk or scroll on your phone while it is being measured, and your bladder should be empty. And you should take your blood pressure at least a couple of times in a sitting," added the report. Enditem

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