Journal of critical care
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Journal of critical care · Feb 2013
Comparative StudyA comparison of the rapid shallow breathing index and complexity measures during spontaneous breathing trials after cardiac surgery.
Extubation failure is associated with worse outcomes. Physicians use respiratory parameters to help them to decide to extubate or not. The purpose of this study is to determine if novel measures of respiratory physiology such as complexity and variability can identify patients who will tolerate extubation. ⋯ Patients who successfully tolerate extubation have longer interbreath interval with greater complexity and variability of that series. Although the V(T) was similar between the Extub-Success and the SBT-Fail groups, the Extub-Success group had greater long-term complexity with no difference in short-term complexity. This implies that the respiratory controllers are differently impacted in patients tolerating or not tolerating extubation.
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Resuscitation has the ability to reverse premature death. It can also prolong terminal illness, increase discomfort, and consume resources. The do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order and advance directives are still a debated issue in critical care. ⋯ There is evidence of the lack of DNR order policy worldwide. Therefore, it appears clear that there is a need for standardization. To improve the attitude about the DNR order, it is necessary to achieve several goals such as: increased communication, consensus on law, increased trust among patients and health care systems, and improved standards and quality of care to respect the patient's will and the family's role.
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Guidelines for the construction of critical care units require windows in room design to ensure a contribution of natural sunlight to ambient lighting. However, few studies have been published with evidence assessing this recommendation. We investigated the association of ambient light levels with clinical outcomes and sedative/analgesic/neuroleptic use in a medical intensive care unit (MICU). ⋯ Despite differing ambient light, room orientation was not associated with critical care outcomes or differences in sedative/analgesic/neuroleptic use. Current guidelines positing that windows alone are necessary or sufficient for MICU room light management may require further investigation and consideration.
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Journal of critical care · Feb 2013
Continuous intravenous administration of vancomycin in medical intensive care unit patients.
The aim of this study was to evaluate continuous vancomycin infusion (contV) in intensive care unit patients. ⋯ In medical intensive care unit patients, contV is sufficient to achieve target serum vancomycin concentrations. Because contV frequently resulted in subtherapeutic drug levels on the first days of therapy, a higher loading or starting dose might be necessary.
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Journal of critical care · Feb 2013
Medication issues experienced by patients and carers after discharge from the intensive care unit.
Medication-related problems (MRPs) frequently occur at the interfaces of care settings. We examined this further because little has been published about MRPs experienced by patients/carers after discharge from the intensive care unit (ICU). ⋯ These results show that our incidence of MRPs after ICU discharge was encouragingly infrequent, in which we attribute it to targeted medicine reconciliation and the availability of our FC. However, MRPs were perceived to stem from inadequate communication at the interfaces of care and the lack of opportunity for patients/carers to obtain relevant information. We recommend that FC should focus on MRPs during their consultation and that further research in this area should be performed to examine our observations further.