Articles: critical-care.
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Clin. Geriatr. Med. · Feb 1994
Review Comparative StudyNutritional support of the elderly patient in an intensive care unit.
Critically ill elderly patients are at high risk to develop protein-energy malnutrition as well as micronutrient deficiencies. They have characteristic metabolic alterations which must be understood in order to provide nutritional support. Current nutritional status can be assessed by clinical and laboratory parameters. The enteral and parenteral routes of administering nutrition and their advantages, disadvantages, complications, and monitoring are discussed.
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Critically ill patients experience many unpleasant and frightening events while in an ICU. Appropriate concern for pain, discomfort, and anxiety is required from caregivers. The use of reassuring mannerisms, honest communication, and analgesics and sedatives, especially during therapeutic paralysis, improves patient comfort and reduces the morbidity rate. This article reviews the therapeutic options for sedation and experience with these agents in the critically ill.
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Aggressive methods of decreasing oxygen consumption, such as therapeutic musculoskeletal paralysis, are used in patients with marginal oxygen delivery associated with cardiac and respiratory insufficiency. This is especially true of new mechanical ventilation methods designed to decrease tidal volume and peak airway pressures. ⋯ Escalated doses of sedatives, followed by oppressive hemodynamic and ventilatory side-effects, sometimes indicate the need for therapeutic musculoskeletal paralysis to quickly control life-threatening agitation syndromes. Cerebral-function monitoring with portable, noninvasive, computer-processed monitors allows quick recognition of brain functions under titrated, suspended animation in real time, facilitating modulation of therapy when the visual clues of neuronal function disappear.
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Pain is a major problem and primary concern of patients in the ICU. While nonintubated patients can verbalize their discomfort to healthcare providers, intubated patients cannot effectively communicate and are more at risk for inadequate analgesia. Mechanically ventilated, paralyzed patients are at even greater risk for inadequate control of pain. ⋯ A number of techniques are available, ranging from nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to other techniques and medications. However, analgesia usually requires the use of exogenous opioids. The most critically ill, mechanically ventilated patient receiving controlled alveolar minute ventilation is a candidate for continuous infusion of intravenous narcotics.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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Clin. Geriatr. Med. · Feb 1994
ReviewPreoperative evaluation and postoperative care of the elderly patient undergoing major surgery.
As the population ages and as surgical and anesthetic techniques advance, more and more elderly patients are referred for surgery. As a result, the physician must be increasingly aware of the aged response to surgery and the management of the geriatric surgical patient in the perioperative period. Elderly patients are prone to cardiac, respiratory, and infectious complications, and thus, they need to be screened for the presence of pre-existing disease. In addition, the geriatric patient needs to be carefully monitored in the proper postoperative environment to guard against untoward sequelae.