Dimensions of critical care nursing : DCCN
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Dimens Crit Care Nurs · Jan 2003
Review Case ReportsNew thoughts on sepsis: the unifier of critical care.
In the United States, more than $16 billion annually is spent managing patients with severe sepsis and its sequelae. Insight into the inflammatory response, endothelial tissue, and the coagulation cascade suggest promising new treatment regimens that limit morbidity and mortality due to sepsis and multisystem organ failure. This article will discuss new information regarding the pathophysiology of the inflammatory response and sepsis. Current thoughts on clinical management and a promising new agent, Activated Protein C, will be presented.
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This article presents a program developed at one facility to help provide palliative care services to patients in the intensive care units.
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Dimens Crit Care Nurs · Jan 2003
Decreased cardiac output: validation with postoperative heart surgery patients.
This study was done to analyze the association between defining characteristics of decreased cardiac output (DCO) identified by noninvasive methods and the cardiac index (CI) estimated by thermodilution. Two defining characteristics were associated with DCO: decreased peripheral pulse and decreased peripheral perfusion. This study points out the relevance of peripheral circulation assessment in postoperative cardiac surgery patients.