# 35. IV Keppra Administration / infusion for seizures. Nurses must give the entire dose as ordered.
95 percent of nurses don't know how to program an IV pump to give the entire dose of IV medication, which means that many patients will continue to have seizures.
This video teaches the missing information so that nurses will program the IV pump with sufficient "volume to be infused" to actually prevent the next seizure.
Even then, Keppra is one of the IV medications which refuses to flow out of the secondary tubing. So, despite programming your 200 CC bag to infuse for 255 CCs so as to clear all of the IV tubing, (Holt's IV rule number 2), the secondary tubing remains full of medication. The patient gets only 95 percent of the med.
Pharmacists will tell you the overfill takes care of the 10 percent, and do not worry. Garbage. The overfill is the fluid amount, not the drug amount. You have to infuse all of the liquid from that Keppra or Dilantin bag. Don't leave 10 CCs of the medication in the secondary tubing.
Adapted from "7 IV Antibiotic Medication Mistakes," by David Holt.
RN-IVPB.com