Intensive care medicine
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Intensive care medicine · Nov 2002
Multicenter StudyTop-down costing: problems in determining staff costs in intensive care medicine.
To describe the activities carried out by the staff of Italian ICUs and to quantify the amount of working time devoted to ICU patients. ⋯ Given the wide variation in the number of activities performed and in the proportion of working time spent performing non-ICU related activities, data comparing costs between different ICUs should be interpreted with caution.
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Intensive care medicine · Nov 2002
Multicenter StudyPyrexia in head-injured patients admitted to intensive care.
(a) To quantify the occurrence of pyrexia during the first week after head injury; (b) to elucidate the relationships between pyrexia and neurological severity, length of stay in the ICU, intracranial hypertension, and cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP); and (c) to describe the effects of antipyretic therapy on temperature, intracranial pressure (ICP) and CPP. ⋯ Pyrexia is extremely frequent in the acute phase after head injury. Its incidence is higher in more severe cases and is correlated with a longer ICU stay. It may affect ICP, but its contribution is difficult to assess when other major causes of increased intracranial volume are present. Antipyretic therapy is poorly effective for controlling body temperature and may be deleterious for CPP.