Enteral Feeding (PEG/G/J tubing)

[rachelgeorgina]

I'm looking for some decent, not-to-complex literature, advice and experiences regarding enteral nutrition - particular gastrostomy and also jejunostomy based tubing and feeds (e.g. PEG tubes). I'm currently a student but we haven't covered this in classes or clinicals yet, however I've started working in a prestigious children's facility (a hospice, also providing respite care for the terminally ill) where long-term stomach tubes are common place. I'd like to know more about them and how to administer feeds (both at a rate with the pump and bolus). The staff at the facility are great and have been talking me through the feeds, showing me how things work and so forth, but I would like a significantly larger knowledge base before anyone lets me touch these kids tubes.

So far Google hasn't proven to useful, though I did find one e-book - Tube feeding: practical guidelines and nursing protocols - as well as the auSPEN (Australasian Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition) Clinical Practice Guidelines (and of course my text books).

• One thing that I'm finding really confusing is that all the kids have different buttons/tubes with different ports and access points and I'm not sure how to distinguish each tube/button based on literary descriptions.
  
• The other thing I'm really after is a step-by-step guide for bolus and pump feeds in nurse speak (not text book speak!) I've got the basics from listening and observing at work and I get that lots of nurses have their own ways about things, but I'd love to hear how YOU have learnt this procedure/how you implement it.
  

Thanks a heap!

[vsking1]

There are many different kinds of buttons/tubes out there. If you can find out specifically what brand of tubes are used, you may get more detailed descriptions. In the ones that I see most often, I tell what kind of button they are by the way they look and how many ports they have. Mic-key buttons will have an extra port that is needed to put water in to inflate the balloon that keeps it in the stomach. BARD kinds will just have the one port if it's a g-button or possible 2 ports if it is a g-j tube. Mic-key would have 3 ports in that case. They will usually have the size imprinted on the button itself.

As far as step-by-step guide... are you wondering how to actually administer feeds/meds from start to finish or is there a particular portion that you have questions about?