Nurse Nacole ◂ Nursing Resources

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Sun, 10 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
In mechanically ventilated normal patients, compliance ranges from 50-100 mL/cm H2O, and resistance is 1-8 cm H2O/L per second. Compliance and resistance are displayed graphically from the monitor tracings of the mechanical ventilator.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Sat, 09 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Respiratory system resistance is the ratio of the airway to alveolar pressure difference (Paw - Pplat) to flow. It describes the opposition to air flow through the respiratory tract during inspiration, including frictional forces.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Fri, 08 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Dividing the tidal volume by the plateau pressure minus the PEEP yields the static compliance of the respiratory system. Mechanically ventilated patients with “normal” lung physiology have a static compliance of 50-100 mL/cm H2O.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Thu, 07 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Static compliance requires the use of an end-inspiratory hold. At the end of the inspiratory hold maneuver, “static” conditions usually exist and the corresponding “plateau pressure” represents the elastic recoil pressure of the respiratory system.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Wed, 06 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Dynamic compliance is the ratio of volume added to the inflation airway pressure (Paw) above positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) and therefore includes the resistive forces in the tracheobronchial tree.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Tue, 05 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Compliance determined from airway pressure is a measure of the elastic properties of the respiratory system, including the lungs and the chest wall. In clinical practice, pulmonary compliance is divided by dynamic compliance and static compliance.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Mon, 04 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Under conditions of passive mechanical ventilation, peak airway pressure denotes the total force per unit area necessary to overcome the resistive and elastic recoil properties of the respiratory system (i.e., both lungs and chest wall).

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Sun, 03 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Dead-space ventilation, the portion of tidal volume that does not encounter perfused alveoli, directly affects CO2 excretion and is used as an indirect measure of ventilation-perfusion abnormalities.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Sat, 02 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) may recruit collapsed alveoli, improve ventilation-perfusion matching, and reduce alveolar dead space, but excessive levels cause overdistention and increased alveolar dead space.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Fri, 01 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Inotropic or vasoactive drugs may affect the PaCO2-PETCO2 gradient, either by increasing cardiac output and pulmonary perfusion or by reducing pulmonary vascular resistance and magnifying intrapulmonary shunt.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Normal subjects have a PaCO2-PETCO2 gradient of 4-5 mm Hg. In critically ill patients, the PaCO2-PETCO2 gradient can be elevated, such as in obstructive lung diseases (7-16 mm Hg) and in cardiogenic pulmonary edema (4-12 mm Hg).

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Capnometry is used for a variety of purposes, such as in the diagnosis of a pulmonary embolism, determination of lung recruitment, detection of auto PEEP, evaluation of weaning progress and a marker of elevated dead-space ventilation.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
The expired CO2 waveform can distinguish a variety of pathologies. An esophageal intubation is discernible when the end-tidal waveform becomes lower and lower with subsequent breaths and the patient becomes more hypoxic.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Capnometry affords the measurement and numeric display of expired carbon dioxide (CO2) at the patient’s airway opening. When a waveform plotting CO2 against time or volume is also displayed, the process is referred to as capnography.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Hyperbilirubinemia does not affect SpO2 directly. However, carbon monoxide is a by-product of heme metabolism and deeply icteric patients tend to have higher levels of COHb, so SpO2 may be falsely elevated under those conditions.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Falsely low SpO2 readings occur when minor gaps exist between the probe and skin, allowing light reflected off the skin to “shunt” directly to the photodiode. Xenon surgical lamps and fluorescent lighting can also cause falsely low SpO2 values.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Dark nail polish colors can falsely lower SpO2 values, whereas red polish tends not to affect pulse oximetry accuracy. However, with newer technology, the negative effects of nail polish have been lessened.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Both dark skin pigmentation and dark nail polish interfere with absorption of the wavelengths used by pulse oximetry. Pulse oximeters thus have greater bias and less precision in dark-skinned patients.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Significant levels of methemoglobin falsely lower SpO2 values. The administration of methylene blue or indocyanine green dyes for diagnostic tests causes a false, transient (1- to 2-minute) drop in SpO2 to as low as 65%.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Since carboxyhemoglobin is elevated in the setting of carbon monoxide poisoning, this results in a falsely elevated SpO2 value because the pulse oximeter reports on total hemoglobin saturation and not just oxygenated hemoglobin saturation.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Peripheral hypoperfusion from hypothermia, low cardiac output or vasoconstrictive drugs can substantially lower SpO2 accuracy, reduce precision, and prolong the time to detect a hypoxic event.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
Motion artifact and poor perfusion are the most common sources of SpO2 inaccuracies, which occur because the photoplethysmographic pulse signal is very low in these settings compared with the total absorption signal.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
The oxyhemoglobin dissociation curve must be taken into account when interpreting the SpO2. If the curve is in a normal position, then high SpO2 values (96%-98%) represent a PaO2 in the range of 80-100 mm Hg.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
The accuracy of pulse oximeters has improved over the years. In critically ill patients with an arterial oxygen saturation (SaO2) >90%, it is now estimated that the mean difference between SpO2 and SaO2 is less than 2%.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Critical Care Nursing

noreply@blogger.com (Nurse Nacole) — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Category: Critical Care Nursing
The standard pulse oximeter emits two wavelengths of red light (660 nanometers and 940 nanometers) from the light-emitting diode on one side of the probe, through the capillary bed, to a light-detecting photodiode on the other side.