Chest Tube Water Seal Vs Wall Suction

The water seal ensures only one direction of air.

Chest tube water seal vs wall suction. Simple water seal non suction drainage or water seal with the addition of external suction suction. If the water seal wasn t there the air would love freely back and forth. Keep the system closed and below chest level. If your patient has a traditional water seal chest drainage unit cdu you ll need to manage the system.

Water seal a chest drain on wall suction means the patient s chest drain is attached to the vacuum regulator the device attached to the wall that controls the suction pressure. A chest tube is essentially a device used to drain air or fluid from the pleural space in order to restore the lungs to normal function. The essential principles of a chest drainage system are to permit drainage of fluid and air to eliminate the residual pleural space facilitate lung re expansion and to maintain negative pressure there are 2 different concepts of chest tube management currently in use. The management of pleural chest tubes with primarily water seal or added suction is the subject of debate and the benefits of one versus the other in regards to duration of air leak amount of time the chest tube is in place length of hospital stay and incidence of.

1 the collection chamber. So the terminology is very clear. When the md puts it as water seal he means to put i. Im pretty sure i know the answer already but i just wanted to confirm with a few other nurses out there.

How does a three chamber system work. You will need to know if the system is a wet suction water seal or a dry suction water seal. To show that changing chest tubes to a water seal after 12 hours of wall suction intervention is a safe alternative to using chest tubes with wall suction until removal of the tubes usual care in patients after open heart surgery. Notice the tubes on the right are not submerged.

Make sure all connections are taped and the chest tube is secured to the chest wall. The pleurevac is a commonly used chest tube system which contains three chambers. Pleural chest tubes are used to reestablish negative intrathoracic pressure after disruption of the pleural space. And 3 the suction control chamber.

If a therapist receives this order they will need to be competent with moving their patient s chest drain from wall suction to water seal and back again. At my hospital when i have a patient with a chest tube i pretty much see one of two orders for it. It is the only submerged tube.