Re: blood Pressure - C# Discussion Boards

25-Feb-10 20:44

I have a medical software and I want to know what's the best control to use and what's the best SQL field type for blood pressure?

The blood pressure as you know is in this format: 999/999
it also has a flag for either right hand (L) or left hand (R), something like radio control

I don't want the traditional way!! I mean two numeric and two radio?!

I thought of the ButtonEdit from DevExpress with a ###/### mask but I faced a problem with the L and R flags..

What is your advise?

Message Closed

25-Feb-10 20:53

stancrm

25-Feb-10 20:53

Message Closed

modified 23-Nov-14 7:08am.

Jassim Rahma25-Feb-10 20:56

25-Feb-10 20:56

but only one will be used at the time. you know when you are visiting the doctor, he will take the blood pressure sometimes from your right hand and sometimes from your left hand d so why do I have to show both if only one will be shown, well, it's very rare that doctor will take blood pressure from both but i can then consider as new row in the sql table but my issue is what's the best way to do on the form and in the sql server table?

AspDotNetDev25-Feb-10 21:55

25-Feb-10 21:55

So, the 99/99 is the systolic/diastolic blood pressure which may be for either the left or right arm, but sometimes for both arms?

I'd use a tab control that contains two tabs. One tab would say "Left Arm" and the other would say "Right Arm". Each tab would have a label that says "Systolic / Diastolic" and a MaskedTextBox with the mask set to "990/990". I believe "9" means "digit is optional" and "0" means "digit is required". That would allow the user to enter a number between 0 and 999 for the systolic value and for the diastolic value. That would also allow the user to enter a blood pressure for the left arm and/or the right arm.

As far as storing it in the database, you could make it complicated, but I'd just keep two varchar fields (one for the left arm and one for the right). One field could be called LeftArmPressure and the other RightArmPressure. You could store each as string like this: "120/80". Then you just serialize/parse as necessary. If you wanted, you could create four fields (LeftSystolic, LeftDiastolic, RightSystolic, RightDiastolic) or you could normalize the field into a new table that points back to your primary table, but that is more complicated than it needs to be. Unless you need indexing on both the systolic and diastolic (unlikely), I'd just go with the two fields.

Jassim Rahma26-Feb-10 18:31

26-Feb-10 18:31

but i am trying to reduce number of controls on the form?!

is it possible to have one control, textbox for example with a mask of (999/999 Left) or (999/999 Right)? then save each separately in sql?

AspDotNetDev26-Feb-10 18:48

26-Feb-10 18:48

The tab control is probably the best option if you want the user to have the option of entering both a left and right value. Since the user only sees one tab at a time, that reduces the amount of space used by the controls on the screen. And you only have to interact with the two textboxes in the code.

If, however, you only want the user to enter either a left or a right, you would only need a textbox and either a button or a combobox. The user would enter "999 / 999" in the textbox. If you went with a combobox, you'd just add two items to it: "Left" and "Right". The user would select whichever. If you went with a button, you'd just have the text change when the button is clicked. When it says "Left" and is clicked, it changes to say "Right". And when it says "Right" and is clicked, it changes to say "Left". The code would be something like this:

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
	if (button1.Text.ToLower() == "left")
	{
		button1.Text = "Right";
	}
	else
	{
		button1.Text = "Left";
	}
}

Also, if you wanted to add a third item to the combobox that says "Left and Right", the user might then enter text like "999 / 999 | 999 / 999". But you'd want to make it clear to the user that they should type it in that format (a MaskedTextBox is one way to do that).

If you are really ambitious, you could create a custom control that acts like DateTimePicker. The text is displayed like "999 / 999 Left". When the user clicks on "Left" and presses up or down, it changes to "Right" and when the users presses up or down when it says "Right", it changes to "Left". And when the user clicked on one of the numbers, pressing up or down could increment or decrement the numbers (and page up / page down could increment/decrement by increments of 10). You might even be able to get away with that by using a TextBox and using the events (such as key presses and mouse clicks) to create that functionality.

Luc Pattyn25-Feb-10 22:22

Luc Pattyn

25-Feb-10 22:22

Hi,

I suggest you store the systolic and diastolic pressures in separate, numeric fields; don't turn them into a single string in your database. Use strings for texts, and for types the database cannot handle in any other way, but not for numbers.

Smile | :)

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AspDotNetDev25-Feb-10 23:01

25-Feb-10 23:01

Now that I think about it, this is probably a better idea than combining them into strings. Makes working with the data easier in SQL. The data is also smaller that way.

Jassim Rahma1-Mar-10 21:04

1-Mar-10 21:04

can anyone help plz..

I want to have a textbox with a mask of ##0/##0 Left and ##0/##0 Right so user must both number and select either L or R to display Left or right

AspDotNetDev1-Mar-10 21:10

1-Mar-10 21:10

You are in luck. This post describes how to do just that.

jrahma wrote:
select either L or R to display Left or right

What do you mean by this? Select what? A combobox? A button that toggles the text? A toggle button that is inside of the textbox? The keys "L" and "R"?

Jassim Rahma1-Mar-10 21:16

1-Mar-10 21:16

isn't it possible to have it all in the textbox without the button?

AspDotNetDev1-Mar-10 21:18

1-Mar-10 21:18

That's exactly what I described in the post I liked to. Read it.