Articles: chronic.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Body temperature and mortality in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome.
Little is known about the relationship between body temperature and outcomes in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). A better understanding of this relationship may provide evidence for fever suppression or warming interventions, which are commonly applied in practice. ⋯ Early in ARDS, fever is associated with improved survival rates. Fever in the acute phase response to lung injury and its relationship to recovery may be an important factor in determining patients' outcome and warrants further study.
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Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common complication in intensive care unit (ICU) patients and is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. We compared long-term outcome and quality of life (QOL) in ICU patients with AKI treated with renal replacement therapy (RRT) with matched non-AKI-RRT patients. ⋯ In long-term critically ill AKI-RRT survivors, QOL was comparable to matched long-term critically ill non-AKI-RRT survivors, but lower than in the general population. The majority of AKI-RRT patients wanted to be readmitted to the ICU when needed, despite a higher severity of illness compared to matched non-AKI-RRT patients, and despite the fact that one quarter had persistent dialysis dependency.
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Predictors of outcome in lateral epicondylalgia, which is mainly characterized as a mechanical hyperalgesia, are largely limited to sociodemographic and symptomatic factors. Quantitative sensory testing is used to study altered pain processing in various chronic pain conditions and may be of prognostic relevance. ⋯ Early assessment of cold pain threshold could be a useful clinical tool to help identify patients at risk of poorer outcomes and might provide direction for future research into mechanism-based treatment approaches for these patients.
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Pain is among the most important symptoms in terms of prevalence and cause of distress for cancer patients and their families. However, there is a lack of clearly defined measures of quality pain management to identify problems and monitor changes in improvement initiatives. ⋯ A set of good practice indicators has been built and pilot tested as a feasible, reliable and useful quality monitoring tool, and underscoring particular and important areas for improvement.
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In this study, we evaluated the impacts of organ failure and residual dysfunction on 1-year survival and health care resource use using Intensive Care Unit (ICU) discharge as the starting point. ⋯ Organ failure was an important determinant of 1-year outcome of critically ill survivors. Nevertheless, the impact of organ failure tended to diminish over time. Resource use after critical illness was elevated among ICU survivors, and a targeted action is needed to deliver appropriate care and to reduce the late critical illness burden.