Minerva anestesiologica
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Patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) experience qualitative and quantitative sleep disruption leading to sleep deprivation and adverse sequelae. Patient-related factors, environmental factors, and health-support techniques contribute to sleep disruption. This quality improvement study examines potential factors contributing to poor sleep in the ICU. ⋯ Patients commonly report poor sleep in the ICU related to environmental factors that are potentially modifiable.
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Minerva anestesiologica · Apr 2012
Case ReportsAcute liver failure due to acute fatty liver of pregnancy.
Acute fatty liver of pregnancy (AFLP) is a rare but serious liver disease and typically occurs during the third trimester. It carries the risk for significant perinatal and maternal mortality. Therefore an early diagnosis and delivery, followed by close monitoring and optimized management of the impaired liver function with all associated problems are necessary to prevent maternal and foetal death. This case report focuses on the management of acute liver failure due to AFLP in a 31 year old women treated in our intensive care unit (ICU) after an emergency C-section.
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Minerva anestesiologica · Apr 2012
Echocardiographic evaluation and N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide measurement of patients hospitalized for heart failure during weaning from mechanical ventilation.
Weaning patients with heart failure who have required mechanical ventilation remains challenging. We evaluated echocardiographic indexes and N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) as markers of acute cardiac dysfunction before and after spontaneous breathing trials (SBT) in such patients to assess their ability to predict subsequent successful extubation. ⋯ Neither NT-proBNP level nor the studied echocardiographic indices before SBT were able to predict SBT outcome in patients presenting with severe heart failure. Failure to increase the cardiac index and increases in both E/Ea ratio and NT-proBNP levels were seen at end-SBT in patients who failed the SBT, and may reflect failure of myocardial reserve to cope with the stress of SBT.
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Minerva anestesiologica · Apr 2012
Use of pulse pressure variation to estimate changes in preload during experimental acute normovolemic hemodilution.
Acute normovolemic hemodilution (ANH) is an alternative to blood transfusion in surgeries involving blood loss. This experimental study was designed to evaluate whether pulse pressure variation (PPV) would be an adequate tool for monitoring changes in preload during ANH, as assessed by transesophageal echocardiography. ⋯ Changes in preload during ANH were detected by changes in PPV. ∆PPV was superior to ∆PAOP and ∆CVP to this end.
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Minerva anestesiologica · Apr 2012
Impact of the European Paediatric Life Support course on knowledge of resuscitation guidelines among Austrian emergency care providers.
Even though anaesthetists do not resuscitate children on a daily basis, they need to perform paediatric life support regularly due to their different duties. As the knowledge of international guidelines varies widely, highly standardized European Paediatric Life Support (EPLS) courses have been introduced to improve standards of care. This national survey among Austrian anaesthetists and EPLS course participants evaluated the impact of this course at the end of the guideline period 2005-2010. ⋯ The attendance of an EPLS course within the guideline period 2005 significantly increased the theoretical knowledge of paediatric resuscitation guidelines.