Essay On Tube Feedings

Our body needs nutrition requirement to stay healthy and strong. Tube feedings are given when a client cannot eat or drink enough to have adequate nutrition for the body, a person having deformity of mouth or esophagus, difficulty in swallowing or keeping food down or even a client needs to receive certain medication.

Basically, body healing process needs good nutrition and fluid to prevent body from dehydration. Through gastrostomy tube, it allows the delivery of supplemental nutrition and medications directly into the stomach. A gastrostomy is a feeding tube that is inserted directly into the stomach either surgically under direct vision (open or laproscopic), endoscopically (with a camera), or radiologically (x-ray guidance). It also provides

Next, involve participation of family to learn on maintaining and checking for patency of tube by administering room-temperature water before and after feeding where it can establish patency before feeding and clear the tube after feeding. Remind clients and family that all feedings are given at room temperature or near body temperature. When giving feeding, nurses also should explain the correct technique which is by keeping the bed elevated for at least one hour after feeding to facilitates digestion and to decrease risk of aspiration. It is also important to monitor the tube’s length and notify physician or home care nurse if the segment of the tube outside the body becomes shorter or longer. Flushing the tube with 30mL of water after bolus feeding or medication administration is vital to ensure patency of the tube. Note client or family if client use an intermittent or continuous-pressure feeding pump at home, it is essential to understand the use of particular type of pump, some feeding pump have built-in alarms that signal when the bag is empty, battery is low or occlusion present. So, client or family needs to aware on how to troubleshoot and manage the