When are ted hose removed/ted hose care?

Hi,

When should ted hose be removed? How many hours are they supposed to be worn? Someone else said assess their skin. What am I supposed to look for?
In my facility We have them on in the day- off at night. Assess for redness, breakdown, blisters, edema, etc.

They need to be put on before the patient gets out of bed in the morning, otherwise they're not as effective at reducing edema.Off at bedtime, wash them in mild soap and warm water, rinse, and hang dry.The skin should be assessed at these times to make sure no red areas or sores are developing from the hose, as well as during the day to ensure that they aren't wrinkling and compromising circulation (or causing discomfort).

This is a huge pet peeve of mine. I work ortho and the orders clearly state remove at bedtime reapply in the AM. None of the night shift nurses do this. I get that they are hard to put on but really?

They're a lot easier to put on before the patient gets up than after they've been to the bathroom and walked around or sat in the wheelchair for a while. When I worked nocs, I put 'em on at 0500 or 0600.

9 out of 10 times I will come on shift and learn that the TED stockings have not been taken off since they were placed, and this could mean DAYS.We need to better educate our CNA's about this aspect of nursing care, they do feel it is a nursing treatment, and are loathe to disturb it.

Why do teds need to be taken off at night for bedside assessment of skin, circulation?

Stella, have you ever seen TED hose before? Have you looked up the facility's policy on their use? It should be in one of your textbooks or the unit's procedure manual.

They reason, Stella, is that they're TIGHT and can bunch up and inhibit circulation. How they're being worn should be assessed more than a couple of times a day. They roll down and fold over. They should be smooth and unrolled. Without assessment, straighten, and removal as needed, the patient will get leg ulcers and maybe even find circulation cut off to the parts below where there's a problem. They're taken off to let the skin "breathe."

In my hospital we mostly see TEDs on the ortho units for hip and knee surgs. Idk if its policy or not, but what I was trained to do is TEDs should be washed q24 hours and our pts have two pairs so when one pair is washed and drying, the other pair is on the pt. For out knee surg pts we don't use tape on the dressings, we just use an abd pad over the incision, and put the TEDs on over it to hold the dressing on.

OP as to the "whys" go back to your pathophys, look into causal factors for LE peripheral edema, know what is going on and why fluid tends to linger in these areas and also, you will then understand what types of tissue breakdown, or ulcerations can occur in patients with edema, whether from the edema itself or the underlying pathophysiology that also allows edema to form in the first place. IF you understand this, you will not need to ask your other questions.

Quote from stellaRN1983Why do teds need to be taken off at night for bedside assessment of skin, circulation?

Why do teds need to be taken off?Have you ever went to give a bed bath and caught a whiff of a leg thats been in a ted or a compression sleeve for a little too long? Even if it weren't for the other very important issues that other posters have brought up, common sense dictates they have to come off periodically if for no other reason than good hygiene. Imagine wearing nylons non-stop for several days and think about how that might feel.