What Does That Do?

Going into a hospital for any reason can be a very stressful and sometimes frightening experience. Not only do patients have to deal with the illness or injury that brought them there, but they also have to face a tremendous variety of complex, unusual and sometimes downright strange machinery that will be used in the course of their treatment. Doctors and nurses are often very busy and may not have the time to explain all the equipment that might be seen in a hospital visit. Patients and families, on the other hand, sometimes seem to have too much time to think about such things. Not everyone is interested in the technology they might see in a hospital, but many patients are curious about the machines. The aim of this book is to take some of the mystery out of the equipment they will see, and hopefully enable patients to feel a little more comfortable and a little more involved in their own care. Families and visitors of patients often feel just as bewildered as the patients themselves. They look at all the tubes and wires connecting their loved one to machines that beep and whirr and have all sorts of knobs and buttons and colorful displays, and they may not know what it all means. A very wide variety of technological devices are used in the course of treating patients in hospitals. This variety is increasing, and the individual devices are often becoming more complex as well. This book gives a clear and concise description of the principle of operation of each device as well as an outline of the way it is used, so that readers can understand both how and why it is being used in hospital care. Appendices include detailed descriptions of ECGs and arrhythmias, surgery and anesthesia, normal values, and anatomical illustrations.