Transcript for:
Understanding Chest Tubes and Their Function

Now for chest tubes. As you know, chest tubes are used to drain fluid, blood, or air from the pleural space within the lung in order to re-expand a collapsed lung. And so the main purpose is to restore a normal negative pressure within the pleural space. Like with a pleural effusion, where we have fluid in the pleural lung space, or a hemothorax, that blood in that pleural lung space, And even pneumothorax, that air inside that lung space.

Now, how does a chest tube work? Well, by inserting the tube into this pleural lung space, it simply sucks out that air, fluid, or blood into a closed, one-way, drained system. So naturally, we must keep the drained system below the chest level to help with drainage.

So Hesse mentions this. Asking interventions for a client with a chest tube for a pneumothorax. And the answer is to keep the drainage below the chest level. Yes, gravity helps with drainage.

Now for chest tube care, the three chambers to know for your nursing exams and the NCLEX is number one, the suction control chamber right here. Number two, the water seal chamber that also has an air leak gauge right here. And third, the collection chamber to measure output.

So starting with number one, the suction control chamber. Key terms here, write this down. We want to see gentle, steady, or key terms, continuous bubbling.

This means we have a good amount of suction being applied, especially with clients with a pneumothorax, that air inside the lung. Again, gentle, continuous bubbling means the chest tube is working. Not vigorous or violent bubbling. This means that the suction is too high. So the memory trick we use, just think of a child sucking down a milkshake in the suction-controlled chamber.

We want gentle, continuous bubbling. Not vigorous or violent bubbling. Just like the milkshake, vigorous bubbling is not good and could get a little bit messy. Next we have the water seal chamber and air leak monitor.

This guy acts as a one-way valve to help drain air and fluid from the lung and also prevents air from entering that chest cavity. Now, it's good to see a steady rise and fall with breathing. This is known as titling, and this is good. It means that the system is working correctly and keeping that negative pressure.

Naturally rising and falling with each breath. And this will naturally reduce as the lung re-expands. Now continuous bubbling is very bad. Typically it means that there's an air leak inside the system.

Oh no! But we'll cover this more in detail in a moment. So the memory trick, just think of a seal inside the ocean for the water seal.

This seal floats up and down with the tides of the waves, nice and even every time it takes a breath. So this is tides. tidling that rise and fall with the tide. Now a big no-no is we never want this seal to be blowing continuous bubbles under the water.

So just think of a lifeguard saying, hey, no bubbling in the water you seal! and please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel. Last but not least, a big thanks to our team of experts helping us make these great videos. Alright guys, see you next time.