A-Line

One of my clinical experiences includes placing continuous passive motion machines (CPM's) on patients in the recovery room aka the PACU at my hospital right after surgery. There are a number of things to remember when doing this such as lining up the long bones of the lower extremity to the arms of the machine, placing something behind the CPM to prevent it from sliding, making sure it is not rubbing against the other thigh, making sure to put up the railing on the bed, etc...

Another part of the post-operative anasthesia care unit (PACU) is most patients having an "a-line" in. I had always noted it, documented it, but never fully understood what the point of it was. Today I looked it up and found that n intra-arterial catheter (A-line) is a very small plastic tube (called catheter) placed in one of your blood vessels (an artery) and is use dto monitor the oxygenation of the blood, monitor blood pressure, and even draw blood samples for testing.

Back to working on my inservice.

just using this space to store this picture... :-D