Critical care nursing clinics of North America
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Crit Care Nurs Clin North Am · Jun 1994
ReviewAdult respiratory distress syndrome: mediators on the run.
The critical care nurse can no longer view adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) as a single organ dysfunction. ARDS may be the triggering event or the end result of a systemic inflammatory response. ⋯ An examination of assessment cues for early diagnosis and continued evaluation of the progression of acute lung injury and the systemic response are explored. Concluding the article is a critical analysis of supportive and experimental treatment modalities and their impact on patient outcome.
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Acute renal failure in the critically ill patient may have a wide range of clinical presentations and necessitate numerous nursing interventions. This article reviews the etiologies, pathophysiology, and diagnoses related to acute kidney dysfunction with a particular emphasis on sequelae related to sepsis. Additionally, the nursing care for managing patients with acute renal failure with the available renal replacement modalities is discussed.
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Sepsis is noted for producing disruptions in hemostasis. The patient-related risk factors, clinical presentation, and management strategies are dependent upon the presiding disorder. ⋯ Nursing care focuses on prevention, early recognition, and supportive care for the thrombotic or bleeding patient. An overview of the disorders of hemostasis in sepsis and nursing care of these patients are described in this article.
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Crit Care Nurs Clin North Am · Jun 1994
ReviewThe inflammatory/immune response in critical illness: role of the systemic inflammatory response syndrome.
The inflammatory/immune response is designed to protect the body and limit the extent of injury. In the setting of critical illness, however, regulation of this exquisite response is often lost for reasons that remain to be elucidated. Loss of regulation combined with shock, infection, inflammation, and/or ischemia often leads to the development of the systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), which frequently is associated with the development of septic shock, disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), multiple organ dysfunction (MODS), and other complications of critical illness.