Describe what a nurse hears through the stethoscope while using a blood pressure

During a normal reading, the first thing the nurse hears is the absence of sound, because there is no blood flowing through the brachial artery; she has successfully compressed the artery with the inflated cuff. As soon as she has released enough pressure to allow blood to flow again, she hears the rumbling sounds of turbulent blood flow through a partially compressed artery. As she continues to release pressure, eventually the blood flows smoothly again as the artery is no longer compressed. The cuff pressure at the initial sound is the systolic blood pressure, and the cuff pressure when the sounds then disappear is the diastolic blood pressure.