Cuff Pressure Gauge

[katekath]

Hello,

I haven't written much, though I do come in here and read from time to time.

My mum's back in the hospital again after about 1 year free of them. She has got an infection. Her fever's finally down after 4 days, though she is still on antibiotics.

Nurses are incapable of taking care of her as usual, so my sister's camped out beside her during the day. Thank goodness for her, so I can work in peace without worrying about my mum much.

Anyway, does anyone use a cuff pressure gauge? My mum has a cuff fenestrated trach tube and we usually inject 3 mL of air into her "balloon". However, I read that it is better to have a pressure gauge to measure the actual pressure in her cuff, rather than estimate it from the volume of air we inject.

Any comments? Thanks in advance.

-
Wan

 

[katekath]

In case anyone else needs info on this...

We managed to borrow one and tried it out with my mum.

We realised we need about 3.5 mL of air to achieve about 30 cm H2O of pressure. The recommended range is 20 - 30.

In addition, the gauge will not register an accurate pressure if you realised you had injected too much air, withdraw a little then re-measure the pressure with the gauge.

You will have to deflate the "balloon" totally then inject a lower volume of air before you measure the pressure again.

However, it is better not to do inflate and deflate too many times within a short period of time.