Neurocritical care
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A variety of technologies have been developed to assist decision-making during the management of patients with acute brain injury who require intensive care. A large body of research has been generated describing these various technologies. ⋯ This supplement contains a Consensus Summary Statement with recommendations and individual topic reviews on physiologic processes important in the care of acute brain injury. In this article we provide the evidentiary tables for select topics including systemic hemodynamics, intracranial pressure, brain and systemic oxygenation, EEG, brain metabolism, biomarkers, processes of care and monitoring in emerging economies to provide the clinician ready access to evidence that supports recommendations about neuromonitoring.
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Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of death and disability worldwide. In large part critical care for TBI is focused on the identification and management of secondary brain injury. This requires effective neuromonitoring that traditionally has centered on intracranial pressure (ICP). ⋯ Increased ICP, particularly the pattern of the increase and ICP refractory to treatment is associated with increased mortality. Class I evidence is lacking on how monitoring and management of ICP influences outcome. However, a large body of observational data suggests that ICP management has the potential to influence outcome, particularly when care is targeted and individualized and supplemented with data from other monitors including the clinical examination and imaging.
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Careful patient monitoring using a variety of techniques including clinical and laboratory evaluation, bedside physiological monitoring with continuous or non-continuous techniques and imaging is fundamental to the care of patients who require neurocritical care. How best to perform and use bedside monitoring is still being elucidated. ⋯ This supplement contains a Consensus Summary Statement with recommendations and individual topic reviews as a background to the recommendations. In this article, we highlight the recommendations and provide additional conclusions as an aid to the reader and to facilitate bedside care.
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Neuromonitoring has evolved rapidly in recent years and there now are many new monitors that have revealed a great deal about the ongoing pathophysiology of brain injury and coma. Further evolution will include the consolidation of multi-modality monitoring (MMM), the development of next-generation informatics tools to identify complex physiologic events and decision support tools to permit targeted individualized care. In this review, we examine future directions and emerging technologies in neuromonitoring including: (1) device development, (2) what is the current limitation(s) of MMM in its present format(s), (3) what would improve the ability of MMM to enhance neurocritical care, and (4) how do we develop evidence for use of MMM?
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Review
Clinical Monitoring Scales in Acute Brain Injury: Assessment of Coma, Pain, Agitation, and Delirium.
Serial clinical examination represents the most fundamental and basic form of neurological monitoring, and is often the first and only form of such monitoring in patients. Even in patients subjected to physiological monitoring using a range of technologies, the clinical examination remains an essential tool to follow neurological progress. Key aspects of the clinical examination have now been systematized into scoring schemes, and address consciousness, pain, agitation, and delirium (PAD). ⋯ Conventional sedation scoring tools for critical care, such as the Richmond Area Sedation Scale (RASS) and Sedation-Agitation Scale (SAS) may provide reasonable tools in some neurocritical care patients. The use of sedative drugs and neuromuscular blockers may invalidate the use of some clinical examination tools in others. The use of sedation interruption to assess neurological status can result in physiological derangement in unstable patients (such as those with uncontrolled intracranial hypertension), and is not recommended.