Please help with HW enteral feedings

Nursing Students Student Assist

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Amanda Barnes has a small bore feeding tube in place and is receiving continuous full strength Isocal formula at 120 ml/hour via a feeding pump. Isocal comes in cans containing 240 ml.

How would you prepare and deliver this type of tube feeding?

How much of the Isocal can be poured safely intothe tube feeding container each time?

I feel like this question is missing information or I am making this too difficult. This is our homework and it does not match anything in our lessons,book or practice questions given. Lessons/book tells me all about the type of feeding systems but not how formula is prepared except to say it requires sterile water. I can't calculate how much formula and sterile water from this problem can I? I don't understand really what it is asking and my teacher never answers questions. I asked her about this one and was basically told to screw off. Thank you, I am desperate!

p.s. here is a practice problem

Example 2:

Order: 1/3 strength Ensure 900 mL by NG over 8 hours.

1/3 ( desired strength) x 900 (amount of solution) = x (solute)

Step 1:

900

___ = x x = 300 mL

3

Step 2:

900 mL (amount of solution) - 300 mL (solute) = 600mL (amount needed to dissolve)

Therefore you would add 600 mL water to 300 mL of Ensure to make 900 mL of 1/3 strength Ensure.

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Specializes in NICU.

Amanda Barnes has a small bore feeding tube in place and is receiving continuous full strength Isocal formula at 120 ml/hour via a feeding pump. Isocal comes in cans containing 240 ml.

CLUE: What is the definition of "Full Strength"?

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Specializes in Community Health/School Nursing.

^^^What Don1984 said. :-)

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Full strength as in all of it so is the answer would administer the whole 240 ml/hr?? or..? sigh

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Specializes in Complex pedi to LTC/SA & now a manager.

No your rate is already stated. So how many hours would it take 240mL to infuse?

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How many hours would it take to infuse if feeding at 120ml/hr? 2? (120x 2 =240)

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Specializes in Complex pedi to LTC/SA & now a manager.

So you would not run at 240mL/hr. Do you need clean or sterile technique? This seems more a procedural description than calculation question since the patient is on continuous feeds at a fixed rate

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Specializes in Neuro, Telemetry.

I agree, it seems the question is asking how would you prepare and then administer this type of feeding. You guys have already touched on the question telling you it is full strength, so preparing the actual formula should be easy, but if you are unsure your book should have a basic "how-to" of tube feeding. Sterile or clean technique. What type of solution used when needing to mix a formula with fluid. What steps with each type of tubing system. If you can't find a step-by-step on tube feedings (both intermittent and continuous) in your books, then you can always resort to google. My schools required books have all that info in them, plus they passed out a step-by-step guide that we could reference if we get a tube fed patient in clinical (even though depending on the system, we would likely just be observing anyway). GL

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Aha! I was thinking it required a calculation to answer the first, then with that info to answer the rest of them. my teacher told me to go to evolve math lessons to give me an idea how to solve but they are all just like the practice problem I posted. Thank you everyone for your time, only been in the program a few weeks!

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Aha! I was thinking it required a calculation to answer the first, then with that info to answer the rest of them. my teacher told me to go to evolve math lessons to give me an idea how to solve but they are all just like the practice problem I posted. Thank you everyone for your time, only been in the program a few weeks!
There is a part missing...time to run over. So....what is the size of the tube feeding bag?

You have a FULL STRENGTH feeding in 240ml cans infusing at 120ml/hr...you need to know how much can fit in the bag and how much can safely hang and for how long.

If your bag is only 1000mls total volume then you can safely add only ______ cans or 1000ml.

If you have the feeding at 120mls/hr how many hours will the bag last?

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
How many hours would it take to infuse if feeding at 120ml/hr? 2? (120x 2 =240)

If you have a 1000ml full feeding bag infusing at 120ml/hr....how long will the bag last?

I need to add...a tube feeding at 120ml/hr is really fast for a feeding if you see an order like this for a continual feed...check with the MD

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
my teacher told me to go to evolve math lessons to give me an idea how to solve but they are all just like the practice problem I posted. Thank you everyone for your time, only been in the program a few weeks!
For what it is worth...I think it is a bit lame of the instructor to not give you more guidance than...look it up.
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