Normal Saline During Suctioning Adults Term Paper

(Torpy, 2007)

Some of the symptoms of ventilator assisted pneumonia may be the onset of fever, a higher white blood cell count, and a new or changing lung infiltrate that may be visible on a normal chest x-ray. Cultures taken as samples from the patient's airways may show the presence of microorganisms or bacteria and fungi that would eventually cause the dreaded ventilator assisted pneumonia in the patient. JAMA states that these risk factors may be eliminated to a large extent if the nurses and medical practitioners were to follow certain simple but essential steps in preventing the onset of the symptoms of pneumonia. First and foremost, the nurse must maintain a high degree of hygiene; he must wash his hands both before and after coming into contact with any patient, and second, he must try to keep the bed elevated to a 30 degree head up position, so that breathing become easier for him. He must try to avoid endotracheal intubation as far as possible, as this would directly increase the risk of the patient developing pneumonia, and also make sure that he uses oral and not nasal endotracheal tubes whenever and wherever possible.(Torpy, 2007) After all, the patient is the most important person when he has been admitted into the hospital, and if the nurses and other care givers took certain simple precautions, they would be able to save a life.

References

Druding, Mary. C. (1997, Aug) "Re-examining the practice of normal saline installation prior to suctioning" Medical Surgery Nursing, Retrieved 8 October, 2007 at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FSS/is_n4_v6/ai_n18607505

Medscape. (2007) "Should Normal Saline be Used When Suctioning the Endotracheal Tube of the Neonate?" Retrieved 8 October, 2007 at http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/552862

Schwenker, Ferrin, M; Gift, a.G. (1998) "A survey of endotracheal suctioning with installation of normal saline" American Journal of Critical Care, vol. 7, no. 4, pp: 255-260.

Torpy, Janet M. (2007, Apr) "Ventilator assisted pneumonia" the Journal of the American

Medical Association, vol. 297, no. 14, pp: 31-33.

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