I see both PCA's with dilaudid/morphine and PCEA's with fentanyl. It seems to me that PCA's are more effective for pain control. What is the deciding factor in whether the pt gets a pcea or pca????? And has anyone else noticed more effective pain relief with pca rather than pcea????
purple_rose_3 260 Posts Specializes in Intensive Care and Cardiology. Has 6 years experience. Nov 11, 2008 What is a PCEA?
Tait, MSN, RN 6 Articles; 2,140 Posts Specializes in Acute Care Cardiac, Education, Prof Practice. Has 16 years experience. Nov 11, 2008 I feel my patients get better pain relief with a PCEA (epidual pain pump) than a PCA, however I feel they are more traumatic to wean from due to more consistent basal rates. I prefer PCA's because we generally don't use basals on them, and I am not as nervous about an IV site vs and spinal site."My foot is numb""Ah crap...let me page the on call"Tait
EJSRN, BSN, RN 102 Posts Specializes in Med Surg, ICU, Tele. Has 2 years experience. Nov 11, 2008 patient controlled epidural anesthesia
CABG patch kid, BSN, RN 546 Posts Specializes in Telemetry, CCU. Nov 11, 2008 I see both PCA's with dilaudid/morphine and PCEA's with fentanyl. It seems to me that PCA's are more effective for pain control. What is the deciding factor in whether the pt gets a pcea or pca????? And has anyone else noticed more effective pain relief with pca rather than pcea????I've noticed that patients get the epidurals more if they have a certain type of surgery but what type of surgery is not ringing a bell right now. I don't know if that helps but maybe it will jog your memory because mine seems to be shot right now, lol.
sewnew 204 Posts Nov 11, 2008 patient controlled epidural anesthesiaSo let me get this straight. The only difference between a PCEA and a TEC (tunneled epidural catheter) is that the patient controls the PCEA and the TEC just runs constantly? Correct?
cherrybreeze, ADN, RN 1,405 Posts Specializes in Med/Surg. Nov 11, 2008 We don't use patient controlled epidurals. Plenty of *regular* epidurals, but they just have a basal rate and that's it.