Walking Home From The ICU Episode 76: Less Sedation = Less Work
Is it *really* easier to sedate patients? Ultimately, does giving patient delirium and ICU acquired weakness actually decrease staff workload? Travel nurse, Alex, gives us the real deal. Episode Transcription Kali Dayton 0:28 Alex, thanks so much for coming back onto the podcast are sure you are with us in Episode 32. But can you
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Walking Home From The ICU Episode 75: Communicate. Don’t Sedate.
When Jeff Sweat was about to be intubated, what was he told about what was to come? What information did his wife, Sunny Cannon, receive about the risks and reality of deep sedation? Was is it really like to “wake up” 3 weeks later? How have sedation, immobility, and tracheostomy impacted their family? Had they
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Walking Home From The ICU Episode 74: Walk Them To Sleep
What are the main “treatments” or “tools” to prevent and treat delirium? How can we facilitate “quiet nights” without harming patients with sedation? Peter Nydahl, RN, MScN, PhD, teaches us how to walk them to sleep. Episode Transcription Kali Dayton 0:27 Hello, and welcome back on one of the videos or pictures posted an Instagram
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Walking Home From The ICU Episode 73: Say It Again: Sedation is NOT Sleep
We habitually lie to ourselves and our patients’ families when the word “sleep” leaves our tongues in reference to sedated patients. Why is sleep so vital to survival in the ICU? What prevents our patients from preserving their sanity and cognitive function? What has COVID taught us about the role of sleep in the ICU?
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Walking Home From The ICU Episode Episode 72: Military Veterans and Delirium
Why is baseline PTSD a risk factor for post-ICU PTSD? What does delirium look and feel like for war veterans? Why should the ICU community understand what veterans have experienced before and during the ICU? Episode Transcription Kali Dayton 0:27 Let’s talk about this. We know that a huge risk factor for post ICU PTSD
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Over the last few years I have become aware of the PICS (post-intensive care syndrome) condition and the very serious negative impact that it has on our ICU survivors. I have become much more aware of the potential negative impact of anxiety, depression, PTSD and cognitive dysfunction. Many patients whom we consider saves in the sense they leave the ICU alive have many issues that most people would consider far from a successful experience. Their lives are often dramatically changed in a very negative fashion.
I am a professor of medicine and have been an ICU director for over forty years. What I find very disturbing in my own experience and that of many other intensivists is that this outcome is generally considered acceptable; the patient survived and will get better with time. We have little access to these patients and almost zero information about their condition unless they are unfortunate enough to return to our ICUs. Very few of us have a PICS clinic where we would have a chance to better understand the challenges that some of our patients encounter, and there are very few systems in place to provide feedback to us as ICU clinicians. Therefore, we are blissfully ignorant of the many challenges that a substantial number of our survivors encounter. This is a major problem. The vast majority of ICU survivors and their families will experience cognitive, emotional and physical symptoms which often have devastating impacts on their lives. At this time, with PICS clinics being a rarity, there is no reasonable mechanism for intensivists to have a solid perspective on the frequency and severity of this condition.
How patients and their families are treated in the ICU often has a major impact on how the patient and families survive post discharge. It is generally agreed that most sedation infusions, particularly benzodiazepines, frequently have higher incidences of delirium and post-discharge dysfunction. There are a few hospitals in this country where sedative infusions are rarely used and the incidence of the complications described above are dramatically decreased. I have visited one of these hospitals and was amazed to see how effectively patients on maximum ventilator support can be managed, even walking without sedative infusions. In an effort to explore this treatment option in greater detail I have identified Kali Dayton. She is a nurse practitioner who has practiced in this Awake and Walking ICU for many years and is an amazing source of information on this topic. After extensive discussion with many colleagues, administration and many others, and reviewing the major potential benefits of the program for our patients, we have decided to introduce this program into our hospital.
Peter J. Murphy, MD, FCCP, MRCPI, BSc
Perception Versus Reality: Debunking The Myths About Medically-Induced Comas
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