Klinische Wochenschrift
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Seven different schemes for analgesic anaesthesia were investigated for their clinical applicability, potential side effects, and impacts on circulation parameters of the systemic and pulmonary (peripheral) circulation as well as on the intracranial pressure. In all, so patients per group were treated. The results revealed different reactions of patients, such as a higher incidence of disturbances of the autonomic nervous system and excitation after medication withdrawal. ⋯ In several instances, a clear increase in the right atrial and the pulmonary arterial mean pressure as well as the intracranial pressure was observed during ketamine/flunitrazepam therapy. The combinations pethidine/promethazine or pethidine/flunitrazepam also showed clear side effects on the circulation and evoked an increase in the intracranial pressure. Fentanyl/midazolam or alfentanil/midazolam treatments were the most favourable combinations for most of the patients who were artificially respirated.
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The surgeon uses the scalpel rather than the prescription pad, but this fact is deceptive. Analysis of the development of surgical history yields an impressive insight into the interaction between medication and operative treatment. ⋯ With regard to drugs, intensive care medicine confronts the surgeon with an inconceivable complex of interactions, side effects and dose adaptations. In addition, human suggestibility influences the outcome of operative interventions no less than medical drugs.
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Klinische Wochenschrift · Jan 1991
Review[Disorders of blood coagulation in the intensive care unit: what is important for diagnosis and therapy?].
In the haemostatic system there is normally a stable balance between its components (vessel wall, platelets, coagulation, fibrinolysis), which are in continuously close interaction. Disturbances of this balance may lead to bleeding, thrombosis, or thrombohaemorrhagic consumptive disorders. The task of haemostaseologic diagnostics is to discover eventual preexisting but as yet undiagnosed disturbances in any patient entering an intensive care unit and, in cases of acute bleeding, to provide useful information that facilitates therapeutic decisions. ⋯ Promising attempts to overcome DIC via substitution of antithrombin III and fresh frozen plasma are discussed. Optimal management of complications and monitoring of therapy requires the close teamwork of attending surgeons or physicians and haemostaseologists. The purpose of any therapy is to preserve or regain the balance of haemostasis.
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Klinische Wochenschrift · Jan 1991
Review[How painful is long-term ventilation? Considerations on the importance of analgesia within the scope of analgosedation].
The goal of analgesia and sedation in intensive care units is most often achieved using numerous drug combinations, mostly justified by physicians' and nurses' habits instead of rational pharmacological criteria for the choice of drugs and dosages. The present paper aims at defining the analgesic situation of ventilated intensive care patients and concludes from analogy with other, better understood states of pain that the importance of analgesic drugs is frequently overrated. To achieve effective analgesia and sedation in individual patients, the dosage must be titrated to individual needs. The author suggests that standardized baseline analgesia should be used, which enables sedation to be titrated, whereas the opposite is not practicable in clinical routine.
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In pediatric intensive care, analgesia and sedation has become increasingly important for newborns as well as prematures in recent years. However, its importance is frequently not well recognized and sedation is confounded with analgesia. In our intensive-care unit (ICU), fentanyl and midazolam have proved to be useful. ⋯ During the concomitant administration of midazolam and fentanyl, significantly less midazolam was needed to achieve appropriate analog-sedation. Prior to the administration of analgesics and sedatives, care should be taken to ensure that circulatory conditions are stable and that there is no hypovolemia, and the drugs must be given slowly during several minutes. Especially in a pediatric ICU, light and noise should be diminished and contact between the parents and the child should be encouraged, even when the child is undergoing mechanical ventilation.