Introduction

Rationale

• Intravenous fluid therapy can be safely administered by use of an infusion pump. Most power-driven systems operate via a stepper motor controlled by a microprocessor.
• The driver mechanism can be either an arrangement of rollers producing a peristaltic effect in the administration set, or a small syringe with a valve operating in a similar way to a piston pump (the syringe is supplied by the pump manufacturer in a sealed, pre-sterilized, disposable cassette).
• The most accurate systems are 'volumetric' infusion pumps. The rate of infusion is determined by the accuracy of the pumping system, not by monitoring the number of drops falling in the drop chamber, thus avoiding inaccuracies caused by variation in the drop size.

Uses

Procedure

Further Reading

Publications

Refereed papers

• Recent references from PubMed and VetMedResource.