Your teacher instructed to write about an IV roller clamp. I had no idea what that was so I inquired my mother. It's a little gizmo doctors and nurses use when they have to shoot drugs up people through an arm tube. Which is a subject I am now completely fascinated by, so of course ill write pages to tell my peers (my teacher probably already knows it off the top of their head though).
An IV roller clamp is a small apparatus that connects to the tube of medication or fluid infusions for patients. This is a very crucial clamp as it lets you regulate how quickly or slowly the medicine moves into the body of your patient. Certain medicines should be infused very slowly to ensure safety, while others can be safely administered more rapidly. The roller clamp provides for easy flow adjustment by sliding the clamp up or down the tube. This is very advantageous as when anythings goes wrong say by the flow rate changes unknowingly, so nurses can see it immediately and corrects it soon.
Now, however, nurses have a special tool to help them – an IV roller clamp. Back in the days, they would use a “drip chamber,” a small plastic container that the tube passed through. When they needed to increase or decrease how fast the medicine was flowing, the nurse would have to count the falling drops of fluid and change the height of the IV bag. This took a long time and was perilous due to the many possible counting and adjusting errors that could be made. Using an IV roller clamp instead of a drip chamber helps to simplify this whole process. The clamp can be adjusted with one hand while the other hand takes care of the patient’s needs. There are many good things about using an IV roller clamp. It means that nurses can change the flow rate very fastly and easily, which can be the difference between life and death for some patients. It also means that they are less likely to make a mistake when determining the right amount of medicine or fluid to give their patients. IV roller clamp is a very simple tool, which means that even people who are not professional health care workers, such as family members or home health care workers, can help patients who require IV infusions safely. All these things make the IV roller clamp a very useful device. How to use an IV roller clamp? Here are the steps that nurses and patients who use the device need to follow to use it properly:
Keen on the flow rate Prior to attaching or tying off them IV roller clamps, inspect the order sheet. This sheet is the rate at which the medicine or fluid should be infused to your patient. This will enable you to ensure that you are giving the correct dosage.
Visually inspect tubing: Before attaching the IV roller clamp, visually inspects tubing over its length to ensure that it is not kinked or twisted. If they are, you need to correct it so that the med can flow adequately.
Material: Inline IV roller clamps are made from different materials such as plastic, metal or silicone. Ranking of materials by indexandinCleanability and strengthOf course, some materials are easier to clean or stronger than others, which is important for safety reasons.
IV roller clamps have a limit on the flow rate, you know this right? What is that range of flow rates these IV roller can handle is specified. Ensure you select one which can handle the flow rate required for your patient(s)