Current opinion in critical care
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To discuss the role of echocardiography for the hemodynamic evaluation of critically ill patients. ⋯ Echocardiography has now become an important tool for hemodynamic evaluation of the critically ill patient. Echocardiography should be performed in most patients with circulatory and respiratory failure.
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Curr Opin Crit Care · Jun 2014
ReviewCurrent tools for assessing heart function and perfusion adequacy.
Many devices are currently available for measuring cardiac output and function. Understanding the utility of these devices requires an understanding of the determinants of cardiac output and cardiac function, and the use of these parameters in the management of critically ill patients. This review stresses the meaning of the physiological measures that are obtained with these devices and how these values can be used. ⋯ Evaluation of cardiac function is useful when first dealing with an unstable patient, but for ongoing management measurement of cardiac output itself is key and even more so the trend in relationship to the patient's overall condition. This evaluation would be greatly benefited by the addition of objective measures of tissue perfusion.
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Lung ultrasound, which allows a bedside visualization of the lungs, is increasingly used in critical care. This review aims at highlighting a simple approach to this new discipline. ⋯ http://links.lww.com/COCC/A8.
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Curr Opin Crit Care · Jun 2014
ReviewThe impact of oxygen and carbon dioxide management on outcome after cardiac arrest.
To describe the impact of oxygen and carbon dioxide management on patient outcomes following cardiac arrest. ⋯ Current data for oxygen and carbon dioxide management following resuscitation suggest that hyperoxia and hypocapnia may be injurious and should be avoided, and that mild hypercapnia may increase the likelihood of discharge home amongst survivors. Such data should be viewed as hypothesis generating. Randomized controlled trials have commenced to clarify the safety, feasibility and efficacy of targeting different oxygen and carbon dioxide tensions following cardiac arrest.
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Volumetric capnography (VCap) measures the kinetics of carbon dioxide (CO2) elimination on a breath-by-breath basis. A volumetric capnogram contains extensive physiological information about metabolic production, circulatory transport and CO2 elimination within the lungs. VCap is also the best clinical tool to measure dead spaces allowing a detailed analysis of the functional components of each tidal volume, thereby providing clinically useful hints about the lung's efficiency of gas exchange. Difficulties in its bedside measurement, oversimplifications of its interpretation along with prevailing misconceptions regarding dead space analysis have, however, limited its adoption as a routine tool for monitoring mechanically ventilated patients. ⋯ Recent advances in VCap and our improved understanding of its clinical implications may help in overcoming the known limitations and reluctances to include expired CO2 kinetics and dead space analysis in routine bedside monitoring. It is about time to start using this powerful monitoring tool to support decision making in the intensive care environment.