Question

How should gastric residual volume be managed?

the book used for this course is : Ignatavicius, D. D., Workman, M. L., Rebar, C. R., & Heimgartner, N. M. (2018). Medical-surgical nursing: Concepts for interprofessional collaborative care. St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.

Answer 1

Answer : Gastric residual volume is the amount of liquid drained from the stomach following administration of entral feeds .This liquids consists mainly of infused nutritional formula ,water and secreted gastric juice. We can check gastric residual volume either by aspiration using a syringe or by gravity drainage in to a reservoir. Gastric residual volume remain a major deterrant  to adequately feeding  patient's with gastric -delivered  entral nutrition . The main purpose of the gastric residual volume management to  find out the tolerance of feed and further management . Gastric  Residual volume can be managed by 1) Aspirate stomach contents before each feed (patient who receives ryles tube feeding ) . 2)For continuous feeding patient's ,withhold the feed if aspiration exceeds 250 ml and inform the physician .3)Implementation of an evidence based protocol designed to accept GRVS up to 500 ml but always check the signs of intolerance. 4) checking the colour of the aspiration also important . The main purpose of the gastric residual volume is to identify patient's with delayed gastric emptying earlier ,and deploy strategies to minimise the adverse effects of intolerance such as vomitting ,bloating and others.