Critical care clinics
-
Intensive care unit (ICU)-acquired weakness frequently complicates critical illness, which prolongs intensive care dependency and causes long-term burden. Observational studies have suggested that prolonged underfeeding could aggravate ICU-acquired weakness and impair outcome. ⋯ Moreover, early parenteral nutrition was even shown to increase ICU-acquired weakness and prolong organ failure and intensive care dependency, which may be explained by feeding-induced suppression of autophagy. Currently, the ideal timing of artificial nutrition for critically ill patients as well as the optimal dose and composition remain unclear.
-
Critical care clinics · Oct 2018
ReviewFrailty and the Association Between Long-Term Recovery After Intensive Care Unit Admission.
Frailty is common, although infrequently screened for among patients admitted to intensive care. Frailty has been the focus of research in geriatric medicine; however, its epidemiology and interaction with critical illness have only recently been studied. ⋯ Frail survivors of critical illness are high users of health resources. Further research is needed to understand how frailty assessment can inform decision-making before and during an episode of critical illness and during an intensive care course for frail patients.
-
Critical care clinics · Oct 2018
ReviewEarly Mobilization in the Intensive Care Unit to Improve Long-Term Recovery.
This article outlines the effect of early mobilization on the long-term recovery of patients following critical illness. It investigates the safety of performing exercise in this environment, the differing types of rehabilitation that can be provided, and the gaps remaining in evidence around this area. It also attempts to assist clinicians in prescription of exercise in this cohort while informing all readers about the impact that mobilization can have for the outcomes of intensive care patients.
-
Critical care clinics · Oct 2018
ReviewSedation, Delirium, and Cognitive Function After Critical Illness.
Delirium has been consistently identified as a risk factor for critical illness brain injury, but ICU patients are exposed to a multitude of risk factors for delirium and it remains unclear which of these risk factors should be targeted to improve long-term cognitive outcomes. Because exposure to sedating medications-which are frequently used to treat unwanted yet common symptoms during critical illness-is a risk factor for delirium that is directly controlled by clinicians, the relationship between sedation, delirium, and long-term cognition is of great interest to clinicians, researchers, and patients. This review describes theoretic relationships between sedation, delirium, and long-term cognition and reviews the evidence supporting these theoretic relationships.
-
Critical care clinics · Oct 2018
ReviewPatient and Population-Level Approaches to Persistent Critical Illness and Prolonged Intensive Care Unit Stays.
The differential diagnosis of prolonged intensive care unit (ICU) stays includes intrinsic patient and admitting diagnostic characteristics, occurrences during the course of critical illness, and system failures. Existing data suggest that the most common cause of prolonged ICU stay is the development of new cascading problems, which is now more related to ongoing critical illness than the original reason for ICU admission. Accepting the dynamism inherent in such a clinical course has implications for contemporary clinical care.