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Answer -- You're
right. Noseclips were frequently necessary with positive
pressure breathing treatments given by mouthpiece.
However, when we got away from IPPB and started using small
volume nebulizer treatments for aerosol drug delivery, we drifted
away from noseclips.
However, our
experience shows that the use of noseclips is a simple little
trick that can dramatically improve aerosol drug delivery
during SVN therapy in most patients who are using a
mouthpiece.
How do we know
this? During
our work with delivery of radiolabeled aerosols for lung
imaging in nuclear medicine, we made the discovery that simply
placing noseclips on the patient will rapidly increase the
radioaerosol delivery as evidenced by higher counts on the
gamma camera. We
decided to study the effect of noseclips in the aerosol lab
and did so with the help of 6 students from the Hacienda
LaPuente Respiratory Therapy Program in Los Angeles CA. We
presented a poster (abstract)
about this topic at the 2003 AARC Open Forum in Las Vegas. Also,
if you are administering a so-called "exotic"
aerosol that you do not want the therapist exposed to, such as
antibiotics, or morphine, or chemotherapy, etc., use of
noseclips will augment the protection already afforded by the
Medicator+Plus with its filtered exhalation port. |
