Articles: cations.
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J Hosp Palliat Nurs · Feb 2021
Supporting Interprofessional Engagement in Serious Illness Conversations: An Adapted Resource.
Communication is vital to quality palliative care nursing particularly when caring for someone with a chronic life-limiting illness and their family. Conversations about future decline and preferred care are considered challenging and difficult and are often avoided, resulting in missed opportunities for improving care. To support more, earlier, better conversations, health care organizations in British Columbia, Canada, adopted the Serious Illness Care Program inclusive of the Serious Illness Conversation Guide developed by Ariadne Labs. ⋯ Specifically challenging has been prognosis communication that falls within the scope of practice for each profession. Informed by workshop feedback, an expert team of nurse clinicians and educators tailored an interprofessional clinician reference guide to optimize the guide's use across health care settings. In this article, we present the adaptations focusing on (1) the role of nurses and allied health in serious illness communication, (2) prognosis communication, and (3) a range of role-play scenarios specific to nonphysician practice for serious illness conversations that may arise within the process of care.
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Effective pain management for patients undergoing orthopedic surgery, using pharmacological and nonpharmacological strategies, is essential. This pilot study evaluated music as an adjuvant therapy with prescribed analgesics to reduce acute pain and analgesic use among patients undergoing arthroplasty surgery. ⋯ Study findings provide further evidence for the effectiveness of music listening, combined with analgesics, for reducing postsurgical pain, and extend the literature by examining music listening postdischarge. Music listening is an effective adjuvant pain management strategy. It is easy to administer, accessible, and affordable. Patient education is needed to encourage patients to continue to use music to reduce pain at home during the postoperative recovery period.
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Anasthesiol Intensivmed Notfallmed Schmerzther · Feb 2021
Review[Extracorporeal Strategies in Sepsis Treatment: Role of Therapeutic Plasma Exchange].
Mortality in sepsis remains high. Various techniques for extracorporeal cytokine removal have been investigated as additional therapeutic measures in sepsis and septic shock. ⋯ The use of extracorporeal blood purification methods cannot be recommended for sepsis patients outside of clinical trials given the current lack of evidence of their efficacy. Future investigations should aim to homogenize the studied patient collective in respect to clinical sepsis severity, time point of intervention and different inflammatory (sub-)phenotypes.
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Anasthesiol Intensivmed Notfallmed Schmerzther · Feb 2021
Review[Diabetes mellitus in Anaesthesia - Optimal Blood Sugar Control in the Perioperative Phase].
Uncontrolled high blood sugar can be dangerous for diabetics throughout the perioperative period - in particular, when blood glucose levels exceed a threshold of 250 mg/dl or HbA1c levels are higher than 8.5 - 9%. In such cases, all elective surgery should be withheld to minimize the risk of severe complications. ⋯ Current literature suggests that non-critically ill diabetics should be treated with rapid-acting insulin analogues subcutaneously in operating theatres, whereas critically ill patients should receive continuous intravenous insulin infusions using a standardized protocol. In summary, this review can give a hand in dealing with diabetics during the perioperative period and offers guidance in controlling blood sugar levels with the help of oral antidiabetic drugs and insulin.
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Anasthesiol Intensivmed Notfallmed Schmerzther · Feb 2021
[Acute Kidney Injury: Epidemiology, Pathophysiology, Repair Mechanisms].
Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a major complication in critically ill patients and affects up to 50% of those admitted to intensive care units. Causes of AKI include patient specific factors (susceptibility: e.g. age, pre-existing chronic kidney disease, chronic heart failure, diabetes) and patient unspecific factors (exposure: e.g. sepsis, hypovolemia, cardiac surgery, nephrotoxin application). Mortality of severe AKI is in the range of 40 - 50%. ⋯ Therefore, the prevention of AKI is of an utmost importance. The recommended preventive measures include optimization of hemodynamics and volume status, close monitoring of creatinine levels and urine output, avoidance or discontinuation of nephrotoxic drugs, normoglycemia and the application of alternatives to radiocontrast agents if possible. As the long term prognosis of AKI highly depends on renal recovery, the 2 major goals for the future will be 1) the early identification of patients at AKI risk and 2) the support of renal recovery of AKI patients.