American journal of critical care : an official publication, American Association of Critical-Care Nurses
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The intensive care unit is a work environment where superior dedication is pivotal to optimize patients' outcomes. As this demanding commitment is multidisciplinary in nature, it requires special qualities of health care workers and organizations. ⋯ This article broadly summarizes new developments in multidisciplinary intensive care, providing elementary information about advanced insights in the field by briefly describing selected articles bundled in specific topics. Issues considered include cardiovascular care, monitoring, mechanical ventilation, infection and sepsis, nutrition, education, patient safety, pain assessment and control, delirium, mental health, ethics, and outcomes research.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Effect of lavender aromatherapy on vital signs and perceived quality of sleep in the intermediate care unit: a pilot study.
Sleep deprivation in hospitalized patients is common and can have serious detrimental effects on recovery from illness. Lavender aromatherapy has improved sleep in a variety of clinical settings, but the effect has not been tested in the intermediate care unit. ⋯ Lavender aromatherapy may be an effective way to improve sleep in an intermediate care unit.
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Cardiac abnormalities attributed to adrenergic surge are common after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. Prescribed medications that block adrenergic stimulation may suppress the onset of cardiopulmonary compromise in patients after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. ⋯ No concrete evidence was found that exposure to adrenergic blockade before aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage provides protection from neurocardiac injury.
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The effects of inadequate sleep on clinical decisions may be important for patients in critical care units, who are often more vulnerable than patients in other units. Fatigued nurses are more likely than well-rested nurses to make faulty decisions that lead to decision regret, a negative cognitive emotion that occurs when the actual outcome differs from the desired or expected outcome. ⋯ Nurses who experience impairments due to fatigue, loss of sleep, and inability to recover between shifts are more likely than unimpaired nurses to report decision regret.