Are the "chest thumpers" new?

Nurses General Nursing

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Saw a code today and someone brought a "thumper" that was a machine delivering compressions to the patient's chest. Nurses around me said it was the first time they've seen the machine. It was my first code and was pretty brutal. I am wondering if these are new.

Also, I am wondering if seeing a code gets easier. I am still very shaken by it and found the entire ordeal very upsetting. It was an elderly dialysis patient. The patient was in rough shape to begin with and even worse after the code (he was brought back to life). I kept asking myself , "why?"

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Specializes in Pediatrics, ER.

They were standard of care for medics in the ED I worked in from 2007-2008. It looks pretty violent as the thumper compresses deeply, but it seemed to deliver effective compressions.

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It'll get easier. . . Try to think of the better things you've seen in nursing, so the lesser ones don't haunt you. Or have a colleague you can vent to, that's always helped me.

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Specializes in CEN, CPEN, RN-BC.

Rigs will carry them because it's kind of hard to run a code with a minimal number of people... don't see them in EDs too much, mostly because they're expensive and there are normally enough people around to take turns doing compressions. With the AHA's new bigger emphasis on "high quality compressions," I'd imagine some hospitals will consider purchasing one.

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Apparently this machine was brought up from the ICU, we were at a hospital. Not in an ED setting.

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Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, Emergency, SAFE.

Our hosp just implemented them, but the ambulances around here have had them for years. One thumper for the ER and one for the code team to take when they respond. We were told they were about $14k a piece.

I have to second the advice about dealing with codes. Find a sympathetic ear. They may never get easier, just depending on what kind of person you are, but you will learn to deal with them. Find someone good to talk to, and as always, im sure this board would be more than happy to help you through. :D

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Specializes in LTC, Disease Management, smoking Cessati.

I think they have been around a long time, I remember seeing one in 1977, I was a NA in a small rural hospital and a rig came in with a man in full arrest using one, I was running meds from ICU to ED for them... it was quite brutal...

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Specializes in Family Practice, Urgent Care, Cardiac Ca.

We used them in Cardiac ICUs. They do free up the staff to do other things during the code, and technically they deliver much more effective compressions. But, yeah, they look so violent! I have heard that they they do a little more damage to the thorax too...but risk vs. benefit i suppose.

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Specializes in behavioral health.

I don't know much about them; however, my hands are too weak to do chest compressions that would make a difference. I would need a very small person, as I don't have the strength to do deep compressions. So, in my case, the person would be better off having a thumper, if nobody stronger was around.

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Specializes in CCT.
...and technically they deliver much more effective compressions...

This has never been proven. They're expensive, heavy and have shown absoloutely no survival benefit in trials so far. One company's device caused such grevious injuries when applied improperly a clinical trial was halted prior to completion.

Don't buy into the hype. Both the devices currently available have proven to be no better than a Mk1 Mod0 firefighter or ED tech. Ambulances shouldn't be transporting patients with CPR being performed routinely anyway.

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Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.

They're a life saver for the nurses when you've got "Team Do Everything" as a family. We had a guy go into arrest 4 separate times in one shift. We put in a temporary pacer, had every drip in the house hanging, trying to get a bed at the big flagship hospital up the road, but he was too unstable to transport. If we'd had to do manual compressions for that many episodes, we'd have been coding some of the nurses.

I've always thought that a full blown Code Blue is about the most violent thing you can do to a person outside of rape or murder. We invade every aspect of your body, we feel the bones crunching in the chest of a little 90 year old, body fluids come out of nose, mouth, every opening. That's one reason why most nurses I know say they never want to be coded, never put on a vent, because we know what "do everything" means.

Talk about it; where I used to work, if we had a code, we all went to breakfast together and talked it out before we took it home.

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Specializes in ER.

They have been around for a few years, and I'm pretty sure they were invented for patients in transit, so that they could free up the paramedic or EMT to watch the airway, and get everything else done while on the move.

The main problem as I recall is that they have a fixed rate and depth, which might be fine for a middle aged man, but would just break ribs on a lil ol lady.

I also recall that there was a problem with stopping the early ones. I don't remember the details exactly, but the problem was that there was no way of stopping it once it was going even for ROSC :confused:

I think there was some sort of lock to prevent tampering or accidental knocking an off switch in transit, and it made it darn near impossible to stop them.:eek:

Maybe someone can remember some more detail than me?

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