Articles: cations.
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Objective: It is uncertain whether psychological distress in the family members of patients who die during an intensive care unit (ICU) admission may be improved by bereavement interventions. In this trial, relatives' symptoms of anxiety and depression after 6 months were measured when allocated to three commonly used bereavement follow-up strategies. Design: Single-centre, randomised, three parallel-group trial. ⋯ Non-significant differences were observed for all secondary outcomes. Conclusions: Anxiety and depression at 6 months in the relatives of patients who died in the ICU was not meaningfully alleviated by receipt of either a condolence letter or telephone call. Trial registration: Australia New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12619000917134).
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Medications prescribed for indications or at doses, frequencies or durations not approved by the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration are considered "off- label". Critical illness makes seeking consent for off-label medication use impractical. We aimed to characterise the extent of off-label medication use in a tertiary medical- surgical intensive care unit (ICU) by auditing the electronic health records of all patients admitted over a one-month period. ⋯ Nearly all patients (88.0%) received at least one off-label medication during their ICU stay. Most off- label medications were used for conventional (albeit not licensed) reasons, but nine out of 81 (11.1%) were not; for example, acetazolamide for hypertension, aminophylline for oliguria, and dexmedetomidine for seizures. Recognising the challenges of formally registering an indication with the Therapeutic Goods Administration, but also the value of reducing the incidence of medications used for potentially incorrect purposes, we suggest guideline endorsement of what constitutes standard critical care practice as an alternative to regulatory control.
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Minerva anestesiologica · Jun 2022
Randomized Controlled TrialAnalgesic benefit of metamizole and ibuprofen vs. either medication alone: a randomized clinical trial.
Postoperative pain relief remains a key problem after surgery. Multimodal pain therapy has proven beneficial in alleviating pain to a certain extent. However, when combining non-opioids, the focus has been on NSAIDs and paracetamol, but effects of combined use are only moderate. Metamizole could be a potent adjunct, due to its preclusion in several countries, data on its combined use are sparse, despite its common use in many countries. The aim of this study was to examine whether the combination of metamizole and ibuprofen is superior in relieving postoperative pain to either drug alone. ⋯ Combined use enables superior pain control compared to ibuprofen after molar extraction and tends to be superior to metamizole alone. The premature study-termination may overestimate this effect.
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Curr Opin Anaesthesiol · Jun 2022
ReviewRisk assessment of perioperative neurocognitive disorders, where are we now?
Perioperative neurocognitive disorders (PNDs) are among the most frequent complications after surgery and are associated with considerable morbidity and mortality. We analysed the recent literature regarding risk assessment of PND. ⋯ Advanced age as well as preexisting cognitive, functional and sensory deficits remain to be the main risk factors for the development of PND. Therefore, aged patients should be routinely examined for both preexisting and new developing deficits, as recommended in international guidelines. Appropriate tests should have a high discrimination rate, be feasible to be administered by staff that do not require excessive training, and only take a short time to be practical for a busy outpatient clinic. Models to predict PND, should be validated appropriately (and externally if possible) and should not contain a too large number of predictors to prevent overfitting of models.
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Minerva anestesiologica · Jun 2022
ReviewPrediction, prevention and management of new onset peri-operative atrial fibrillation and flutter in patients undergoing non-cardiac thoracic surgery: a narrative review.
Perioperative atrial fibrillation and flutter (POAF) is recognized as a common complication of non-cardiac thoracic surgery. It is associated with hemodynamic instability, prolonged hospital stays, a risk of stroke and increased risk of mortality. ⋯ Evaluation of risk factors and prediction of POAF can be beneficial for prevention and management of POAF in patients undergoing non-cardiac thoracic surgery. In this article, we reviewed related studies to provide a practically and clinically applicable strategy for anesthesiologists to effectively predict, prevent and manage new onset POAF in patients undergoing non-cardiac thoracic surgery.