Current opinion in critical care
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To present advancements in pediatric cardiac arrest research, highlighting articles most relevant to clinical practice published since the latest international guidelines for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). ⋯ Mounting evidence continues to align management priorities for resuscitation of children and adults.
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Affirmation of the importance of precision in fundamentals of resuscitation practices with improving neurologically intact survival from sudden cardiac arrest, correlated with both measurements of resuscitation metrics generically and recently further refined metric parameters specifically. ⋯ Although traditional CPR teaching of 'hard and fast' chest compressions has promoted a relatively easy to remember directive, the reality is that laypersons and medical professionals alike may unwittingly provide markedly suboptimal chest compression depths and rates. Prior resuscitation studies that focused upon airway adjuncts, defibrillation strategies, and/or pharmaceutical interventions that did not simultaneously gauge the underlying CPR chest compression rates, chest compression fraction of time, and ventilation rates should be cautiously interpreted in light of discovery that assumption of 'high-quality CPR' without measurement of the metrics of such is likely a faulty assumption.
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Curr Opin Crit Care · Jun 2017
ReviewNeuroprognostication after cardiac arrest in the light of targeted temperature management.
Delayed awakening after targeted temperature management (TTM) and sedation is frequent among cardiac arrest patients. Differentiating between prolonged coma and irreversible cerebral damage can be challenging, therefore the utilization of a multimodal approach is recommended by international guidelines. Here, we discuss indications and advantages/disadvantages of available modalities for coma prognostication and describe new tools to improve our accuracy for outcome prediction. ⋯ Multimodal prognostication offers a comprehensive approach of anoxic-ischemic encephalopathy and is increasingly used in postresuscitation care. Worldwide implementation and future advancements of available modalities, together with the increasing use of novel automated devices for quantitative neurological examination, may further optimize prognostic accuracy in the early ICU phase following cardiac arrest.
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Curr Opin Crit Care · Jun 2017
ReviewThe future is now: neuroprotection during cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Survival with favorable neurological function after cardiac arrest remains low. The purpose of this review is to identify recent advances that focus on neuroprotection during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). ⋯ Multiple promising neuroprotective therapies are being developed in animal models of cardiac arrest, and are in early stages of human trials. These therapies have the potential to be bundled together to improve rates of favorable neurological survival after cardiac arrest.
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Monitoring of mental status and peripheral circulatory changes can be accomplished noninvasively in patients in the ICU. Emphasis on physical examination in conditions such as sepsis have gained increased attention as these evaluations can often serve as a surrogate marker for short-term treatment efficacy of therapeutic interventions. Sepsis associated encephalopathy and mental status changes correlate with worse prognosis in patients. Evaluation of peripheral circulation has been shown to be a convenient, easily accessible, and accurate marker for prognosis in patients with septic shock. The purpose of this article is to emphasize the main findings according to recent literature into the monitoring of physical examination changes in patients with sepsis. ⋯ Monitoring of physical examination changes is a significant and critical intervention in patients with sepsis. Utilizing repeated neurologic evaluations, and assessing CRT, mottling score, and skin temperature gradients should be emphasized as important noninvasive diagnostic tools. The significance of these methods can be incorporated during the utilization of therapeutic strategies in resuscitation protocols in patients with sepsis.