Where to measure body temperature with infrared thermometer

Way to measure body temperature

There are several ways to take the body temperature. The auxillary method measure the temperature under armpit. The oral method and rectal method was popular in old days. The tympanic method emerged in the recent decade takes the temperature from our ear. The forehead method uses infrared radiation from human body to read the temperature, which is considered to be the most flexible solution.

How to take the readings

There are two different kind of thermometer. The tradiational glass type and the digital one. Glass type thermometer is considered as invasive measurement in which the themometer needed to be inserted into your body part, for example, oral and rectal thermometers. They are slow in giving our result. The digital thermometers are commonly used in clinics and hospitals, especially the non-contact one, because of their fast reading time.
Glass type thermometers use the physical characteristic of mercury or alcohol toward heat to show the temperature. The orale thermometers need to be kept under the tongue for 5 minutes in order to reach an accurate reading. Armpit and rectal thermometer have the similar requirement. They have to stay in armpit or rectum for 5 minutes. This is because the reaction of the mercury and alchol towards heat takes time to occur, eventhough they are considered to have fast reaction.

Digital thermometers is prevalent nowadays. It is not surprised because of their conveniences. By using digital thermometer, it avoids the danger of breaking the glass of the thermometer, especially the mercury one. Digital thermometers can be used in different part of our body, armpit/ rectal or oral thermometer which needs to stay in the corresponding location for 2-3 minutes in order to take the correct readings. Another type of digital thermometer is infrared forehead thermometer. This type of thermometer out performance others because it can provide you an accurate readings in just 1-2 seconds. The instruction included in the device must be followed in order to obtain an accurate readings. Every manufacture uses different parameter regarding the working distance for the infrared thermometer. The working distance is the distance between the device and the forehead of the patient. This distance matters the accuracy of the readings.

Where to measure the body temperature correctly

No matter it is glass type or digital type of thermometers, follow the instruction attached with the prodcut. In general, oral thermometers are required to stay under the tongue for a short period of time while rectal thermometer is straight foward that you need to keep it inside the body for a few minutes. When you are using armpit thermometer, please beware to tuck the patient's arm snugly against his/ her body. When it comes to infrared forehead thermometer, the device needed to be held up right and with a proper distance which should be stated clearly on the instruction against the patients forehead. 

Beside mouth, under the tongue, our forehead is the best part for temperature measurement as forearm and other part of our body exposed are having less heat dissipation. It means they radiate less infrared which make it not easy for thermometer to calculate the correct reading and that's why forehead will be the correct location for infrared thermometers. 

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