Articles: critical-illness.
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Intensive care medicine · Jan 1993
ReviewEnteral nutrition in the critically ill patient: a critical review of the evidence.
To examine the relationship between enteral nutrition (EN) and infection in the critically ill. ⋯ Evidence from experimental data in critically ill patients suggests that enteral nutrition may have a favourable impact on gastrointestinal immunological function and infectious morbidity.
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Int Anesthesiol Clin · Jan 1993
ReviewClinical utilization of pulmonary artery catheter monitoring.
Since the introduction of PA catheter monitoring in 1970, the applications for it have dramatically broadened. PA catheters are used to obtain hemodynamic data for the assessment, monitoring, and therapeutic management of critically ill, high-risk surgical patients. Because of potential complications associated with PA catheter monitoring, numerous editorials and articles have questioned the procedure's risk-to-benefit ratio. ⋯ Problems may stem not from technology but from the knowledge and expectations of clinicians. "Human" complications from inadequate understanding of the physiological data is not uncommon. Measured pressures by themselves can be misleading; indeed use of absolute numbers rather than trends or relative changes in the values monitored can compromise clinical assessment. Overzealous acceptance and utilization of any quantitative measurement without sound clinical judgment is fraught with failure.
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Int Anesthesiol Clin · Jan 1993
Review Comparative StudyFluid and divalent cation therapy in the critically ill patient.
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A review of nursing research into the impairment of sleep in the critically ill is presented. The author asserts that in order to fully explicate the phenomena from a nursing perspective, research is needed that focuses upon the meaning of the phenomenon to the patient.
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Critical illness, surgery and hypocaloric feeding are accompanied by a high rate of total body nitrogen loss. Loss of body protein, occurring despite adequate nutrition, results in increased incidence of infection, poor wound healing, skeletal muscle weakness and increased mortality. Growth hormone (GH) administration together with nutritional support attenuates protein catabolism. This review focuses on normal GH physiology and the administration of GH in adult catabolic patients.