Articles: intensive-care-units.
-
Critical care clinics · Jul 2023
ReviewThinking Clearly: The History of Brain Dysfunction in Critical Illness.
Brain dysfunction during critical illness (ie, delirium and coma) is extremely common, and its lasting effect has only become increasingly understood in the last two decades. Brain dysfunction in the intensive care unit (ICU) is an independent predictor of both increased mortality and long-term impairments in cognition among survivors. As critical care medicine has grown, important insights regarding brain dysfunction in the ICU have shaped our practice including the importance of light sedation and the avoidance of deliriogenic drugs such as benzodiazepines. Best practices are now strategically incorporated in targeted bundles of care like the ICU Liberation Campaign's ABCDEF Bundle.
-
Critical care clinics · Jul 2023
ReviewFrom Strict Bedrest to Early Mobilization: A History of Physiotherapy in the Intensive Care Unit.
Critically ill patients are at risk of post-intensive care syndrome, including physical, cognitive, and psychological sequelae. Physiotherapists are rehabilitation experts who focus on restoring strength, physical function, and exercise capacity. ⋯ Physiotherapists are assuming more prominent roles in clinical and research leadership, with opportunities for wider interdisciplinary collaboration. This paper reviews the evolution of critical care from a rehabilitation perspective, highlights relevant research milestones, and proposes future opportunities for improving survivorship outcomes.
-
Critical care clinics · Jul 2023
ReviewCritical Care 1950 to 2022: Evolution of Medicine, Nursing, Technology, and Design.
Critical care units-designed for concentrated and specialized care-came from multiple parallel advances in medical, surgical, and nursing techniques and training taking advantage of new therapeutic technologies. Regulatory requirements and government policy impacted design and practice. ⋯ Hospitals offered newer, more extreme, and specialized surgeries and anesthesia enabled more complex procedures. ICUs developed in the 1950s, providing a recovery room's level of observation and specialized nursing to serve the critically ill, whether medical or surgical.
-
Intensive care medicine · Jul 2023
Multicenter Study Observational StudyRelationship between COVID-19 and ICU-acquired colonization and infection related to multidrug-resistant bacteria: a prospective multicenter before-after study.
Patients presenting the most severe form of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), have a prolonged intensive care unit (ICU) stay and are exposed to broad-spectrum antibiotics, but the impact of COVID-19 on antimicrobial resistance is unknown. ⋯ COVID-19 patients had an increased incidence of ICU-MDR-inf compared to controls, but the difference was not significant when considering a composite outcome including ICU-MDR-col and/or ICU-MDR-inf.
-
The first ICU in Toronto was opened at the Toronto General Hospital as a "Respiratory Unit" in 1958. The early days of this unit have been described in various articles published at the time, such as a description in the Canadian Medical Assn. Journal of the establishment of the Unit itself, including the 4 sine qua nons for intensive care. This article will focus particularly on some of the significant issues that arose in the initial years between the opening of the unit in 1958 and the arrival of clinically available blood gas measurement in the early 1960s.