Advances in Fluid Therapy

Fluid therapy is a long-established practice which can be administered in various ways and numerous situations. In this blog, we are going to highlight fluid therapy as a concept and how the latest advances in fluid therapy can improve efficiency within your veterinary practice.

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What is Fluid Therapy?

Fluid therapy is the administration of fluids to a patient as a treatment, or as a preventative measure to prevent illness or ill health. There are many reasons to administer fluids, such as to address ongoing losses, to replace fluids previously lost and to treat and support the patient when the body is compromised in some way.

Why is it Important?

60% of body weight is made up of fluid, so it is no surprise that water plays a vital role in many functions of the body. For example, fluids are crucial to the functionality of the circulatory system which is responsible for carrying fluid, nutrients and oxygen to every cell in the body.

Signs of Deyhdration

So how can dehydration occur? Simply put, when the body loses more fluid than it can replace it causes an imbalance within the body.

Many triggers can cause dehydration, for instance, if the patient is struggling to eat or drink as well as the more obvious triggers including vomiting, diarrhoea or blood loss.

It could also be that the body loses normal amounts of fluid, such as in respiration and urination, but due to the fact the patient is not eating or drinking, the fluid is not being replaced.

Water deprivation could also be a factor if the body is not receiving enough fluid. Whether this is because the patient is not eating or drinking or that fluid is exiting the body before it has the chance to be used - e.g. if the patient is on diuretics.

Typical Types of Fluid Therapy

There are several ways to administer fluids, such as by the mouth, intraosseous and peritoneal, but the intravenous route is by far the most common route. Fluid therapy via the intravenous route is easily accessible with different peripheral veins; the equipment is relatively inexpensive and is tolerated well by most patients.

Once the infusion begins, the user needs to monitor the process closely, which is time-consuming and quite intensive. Regardless of which route you choose to take, when the fluids enter the body, there are a series of manual procedures the user needs to undertake prior to administering fluid therapy. These include working out the amount of fluid the patient needs to receive and the rate to which the fluids need to be infused by. When the infusion has commenced, the patient will require close monitoring of the volume of fluid entering the body and closely monitoring the infusions performance.

Advances in Fluid Therapy

As technology develops, it innovates the way we work and live. The veterinary industry is no exception, and with the advent of our Anifusion® IV pump and cloud portal, it removes a lot of the time-intensive work needed for the user, whilst improving workflow and resource allocation within busy practices.

Improving the standards of animal care and better medicine is at the core of what we do, which is why Anifusion® is specifically designed for the veterinary profession. The pump and cloud portal improves efficiency and accuracy in delivering fluids to your patients and seamlessly communicates pump events or scheduled reminders throughout the infusion to infusion supervisors via text or email.

It is the only IV pump that allows you to profile and digitally record every patients’ infusion via the pump or via the central monitoring portal. Anifusion® has innovated how fluid therapy is carried out by improving and ensuring fluid delivery time for the user and monitoring time for the patient - making it a ‘must-have’ tool for any veterinary professional.