Critical care : the official journal of the Critical Care Forum
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Pain assessment in brain-injured patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) is challenging and existing scales may not be representative of behavioral reactions expressed by this specific group. This study aimed to validate the French-Canadian and English revised versions of the Critical-Care Pain Observation Tool (CPOT-Neuro) for brain-injured ICU patients. ⋯ The CPOT-Neuro was found to be valid in this multi-site sample of brain-injured ICU patients at various LOC. Implementation studies are necessary to evaluate the tool's performance in clinical practice.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Negative drift of sedation depth in critically ill patients receiving constant minimum alveolar concentration of isoflurane, sevoflurane, or desflurane: a randomized controlled trial.
Intensive care unit (ICU) physicians have extended the minimum alveolar concentration (MAC) to deliver and monitor long-term volatile sedation in critically ill patients. There is limited evidence of MAC's reliability in controlling sedation depth in this setting. We hypothesized that sedation depth, measured by the electroencephalography (EEG)-derived Narcotrend-Index (burst-suppression N_Index 0-awake N_Index 100), might drift downward over time despite constant MAC values. ⋯ Maintaining constant MAC does not guarantee stable sedation depth. Thus, the patients necessitate frequent clinical assessments or, when unfeasible, continuous EEG monitoring. The differences across different volatile anaesthetics regarding their time-dependent negative drift requires further exploration.
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To determine the frequency of, and factors associated with, death in hospital following ICU discharge to the ward. ⋯ A significant proportion of patients die in hospital following discharge from ICU, with higher mortality in patients with limitations of life-sustaining treatments in place. Non-survivors had higher systemic illness severity scores at ICU discharge than survivors.