American journal of critical care : an official publication, American Association of Critical-Care Nurses
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Effects of systematic oral care in critically ill patients: a multicenter study.
No standard oral assessment tools are available for determining frequency of oral care in critical care patients, and the method of providing oral care is controversial. ⋯ Oral assessment scores improved after nurses implemented a protocol for systematic oral care. Use of the Beck Scale and the mucosal-plaque score could standardize oral assessment and guide nurses in providing oral interventions.
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Many critically ill patients are transferred to other care facilities instead of to home at hospital discharge. ⋯ The model, which did not include baseline function or social variables, provided good discrimination between patients discharged to a care facility after critical illness and patients discharged to home. These results suggest that future research should focus on the debilitating effects of respiratory failure and on conditions with cognitive and neuromuscular sequelae.