Capnography

Specialties Gastroenterology

Published

Does anyone use capnography monitoring??? Our unit just got all new monitors with capnography. I need to find articles on how to interpret it. Thank you!!!

http://www.capnography.com/

but why is this in gastroenterology? you can OM a moderator to have it moved....

Are you asking why the capnography question is posted in GI?

I am talking about using capnography in a GI unit.

I work in a hospital GI unit.

Thank you!

oh..i know nothing about it,...but it looked more like a respiratory/vent/icu type thing...i think you are much morelikely to get a response in another forum..perhaps general nursing....?

I work in GI and have considered using capnography but so far have not. Ask the company vendor for an inservice or contact a CRNA or Anesthesiologist.

I work in Endoscopy and we started using capnography last week. We had a quick (10 minutes) education on it. We were first told by our educator to look for numbers of 30 to 43 for a normal range. We were also told to look at the wave form. The anesthesiologist told us not to look at the numbers so much but to look at only the wave form. They also told us to remember to always look at the patient first. (Thats fine but my patient that had a blood pressure of 220/110 consistently looked and felt just fine. We all still have a lot of questions, but we have to use for every conscious sedation case.

we have been using capnography now for about 3 years and it is another tool. it works great for watching ventilations and is a great predictor of hypoventilation and apnea. i think it is better in the arena of propofol rather than versed/fentanyl. i agree with the anestheologists. it is not what the numbers are but that there is a wave form. the taller the better.

I use etco2 on every vented pt I have. I recently discovered how to order the nasal cannula ones... Especially in neuro, it'd be nice to be able to r/o increased co2 as a cause of lethargy.

Specializes in ER, ICU.

ETCO2 is an awesome tool, I've been using on the ambulance for more than 10 years. The main reason it is so good is the pulse ox saturation curve, is a curve. In other words there is not a direct line in hypoventilation and a fall in pulse ox. Not so with CO2, as resps fall, CO2 rises in a straight line. Look for a diagram that transposes the two, and you'll see...

Specializes in ER, ICU.

Oh, and the shape of the wave form is square in normal ventilation, but shows an easily seen shark fin shape in broncospasm.

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