Eyedrop (Optic) Medication Administration (Nursing)

00:04 Let's talk about the skill, eye drop or optic medication administration.

00:09 So, a common eye drop or optic medication you're gonna give is typically like glaucoma drops for example for a patient.

00:16 So, these are really common in the hospital.

00:18 So, here's something to keep in mind about these medications.

00:21 Sometimes your hospital facility don't always carry these specific optic medications for your patient, so, it's always good to talk to your physician, encourage to let the patient bring those medicines from home.

00:36 So, when we go give an optic medication, what do we need? So, first of all, that medication itself.

00:41 We may also wanna consider warm water or maybe a nice, normal saline solution, a sterile gauze and facial tissue.

00:50 So, sometimes things can get a little bit messy, so, that's why it's good to have your gauze and also your tissue as well.

00:58 So, before we give any eye medication, don't forget those very important seven rights of medication administration.

01:05 Then, we may wanna take a sterile gauze pad with maybe warm water or sterile saline and kind of remove any of the discharge or crusties out of the patient's eye.

01:15 Then, have the patient look upward and away from the administration site of where you're gonna instill the eye drops.

01:22 Then, we're gonna pull that lower eyelid down to expose the conjunctival sac.

01:28 Now, we're gonna squeeze the prescribed medication to the eye, the dropper itself.

01:33 Then, we're gonna use that facial tissue to absorb any med that maybe drips down the face or around the eye.

01:41 Now, we can repeat that same procedure to the opposite eye as prescribed.

01:50 I'd like to show you a quick demonstration here of giving eye drops to Brandon here.

01:54 So, first, I wanna make sure he's in a comfortable sitting position.

01:58 Then, I wanna make sure with his eyes, there's not any excessive discharge or anything maybe we need to clean off on his eyes before we give the medicine.

02:06 So, first, Brandon, if you would look upward for me, tilt your head back. Great.

02:11 So, I'd like you to look up and away from where I'm gonna give your medicine and you can actually keep your neck straightforward for me.

02:18 So, you can go ahead and line your head this way. Thank you.

02:21 Alright, so, just exactly, up and away with your eyes. Perfect.

02:26 So, now, once I do this, I'm gonna open this up. I've also given my patient tissues.

02:30 That way once I give the meds if it runs down, he can blot that as well.

02:35 So, now that his eye is looking up away, his head is tilted back.

02:39 I'm gonna take the medication and I'm gonna pull down the lower eyelid and really just kind of make a little pocket and make sure I take the tip of the medicine and do not touch his eye ball.

02:52 So, I'm gonna hover a little bit ahead and give him a few drops and they're gonna wanna blink and that's okay.

02:59 And if he blinks or if he starts blinking, that's okay.

03:04 That's gonna help absorb the medication.

03:06 So, after I've administered the eye drops, I've given Brandon the tissue here.

03:11 That way, he can just put the tissue to his eyes for comfort to make sure that doesn't run down his face.

03:22 So, let's look at some do's and don'ts.

03:24 So, don't touch the eye drops to the patient's eyes to maintain sterility.

03:29 What we mean by that, we don't wanna take the actual eye drops and even physically touch the patient eye.

03:36 Number one, that's probably pretty uncomfortable for the patient but it's not gonna keep the medication vial and the eyedropper clean.

03:44 Some things that we wanna do for optic medications is warm that medication to room temperature.

03:49 This is gonna help with comfort for our patient.

03:52 And it's also pretty possible that you may have to give multiple eye drops to a patient in the same eyes.

03:57 So, if we do that, we wanna make sure we allow at least five minutes between each type of medications if several eye drops are being used.