Critical care : the official journal of the Critical Care Forum
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Review Meta Analysis
Efficacy and safety of unrestricted visiting policy for critically ill patients: a meta-analysis.
To compare the safety and effects of unrestricted visiting policies (UVPs) and restricted visiting policies (RVPs) in intensive care units (ICUs) with respect to outcomes related to delirium, infection, and mortality. ⋯ The current meta-analysis indicates that adopting a UVP may significantly reduce the incidence of delirium in ICU patients, without increasing the risks of ICU-acquired infection or mortality. Further large-scale, multicenter studies are needed to confirm these indications.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Right dose, right now: bedside, real-time, data-driven, and personalised antibiotic dosing in critically ill patients with sepsis or septic shock-a two-centre randomised clinical trial.
Adequate antibiotic dosing may improve outcomes in critically ill patients but is challenging due to altered and variable pharmacokinetics. To address this challenge, AutoKinetics was developed, a decision support system for bedside, real-time, data-driven and personalised antibiotic dosing. This study evaluates the feasibility, safety and efficacy of its clinical implementation. ⋯ In critically ill patients, personalised dosing was feasible, safe and significantly improved target attainment for ciprofloxacin.
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COVID-19 ARDS shares features with non-COVID ARDS but also demonstrates distinct physiological differences. Despite a lack of strong evidence, prone positioning has been advocated as a key therapy for COVID-19 ARDS. The effects of prone position in critically ill patients with COVID-19 are not fully understood, nor is the optimal time of initiation defined. In this nationwide cohort study, we aimed to investigate the association between early initiation of prone position and mortality in mechanically ventilated COVID-19 patients with low oxygenation on ICU admission. ⋯ During the first three waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, almost half of the patients in Sweden were treated with prone position ventilation. We found no association between early use of prone positioning and survival in patients on mechanical ventilation with severe hypoxemia on ICU admission. To fully elucidate the effect and timing of prone position ventilation in critically ill patients with COVID-19 further studies are desirable.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Discomfort improvement for critically ill patients using electronic relaxation devices: results of the cross-over randomized controlled trial E-CHOISIR (Electronic-CHOIce of a System for Intensive care Relaxation).
To assess the impact of different electronic relaxation devices on common stressful patient symptoms experienced in intensive care unit (ICU). ⋯ Electronic relaxation therapy is a promising, safe, and effective non-pharmacological solution that can be used to improve overall discomfort in alert and non-delirious ICU patients. Its effectiveness depends on technical characteristics (virtual reality using a synthetic imagined world versus a real world or music therapy alone without virtual reality), as well as the type of symptoms.