The mission to create Awake and Walking ICUs is not a brand new endeavor. Dr. Juli Barr, an early PAD and ICU liberation founder, shares with us the tools needed to master the ABCDEF bundle. Episode Transcription Kali Dayton 0:02 Dr. Barr, welcome to the podcast I am ecstatic to have you on. Can you
Walking Home From The ICU Episode 135: The Contrast Between Awake and Sedated
The cultural assumption that everyone would rather be sedated is based on the myth that sedation is “sleep”. Very few survivors can give us a comparison of being sedated vs. being awake while intubated. Lara, like Susan East in episode 3, has had it both ways and shares with us the contrast. Episode Transcription Kali
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Walking Home From The ICU Episode 134: Are We Sedating Them to Death?
We know that deep sedation is an independent predictor of mortality. This guides most sedation orders to require a RASS of 0- (-2). Is that what is really happening at the bedside? What percentage of patients are actually lightly sedated to the RASS goal vs. deeply sedated? What is driving oversedation throughout the ICU community?
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Walking Home From The ICU Episode 133: “SOAR: Sedation Off Awake and Rehabilitate” with Dr. Fuchita
When Dr. Mikita Fuchita heard about an Awake and Walking ICU, he had to see it with his own eyes. After visiting the Awake and Walking ICU, how did Dr. Fuchita embark on bringing his colleagues together to update their sedation and mobility practices? He shares his personal conversion and his team’s journey with us
Unplanned Extubations: Dispelling the Fear and Understanding the Reality
When I think back to how I started my career as a nurse, it really does seem like a date with destiny. I could have gotten a job at any ICU, but for whatever reason, I landed my first nursing gig at a high acuity medical-surgical intensive care unit in Salt Lake City, Utah, which
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Walking Home From The ICU Episode 132: The Power of ICU Diaries to Treat Post-ICU PTSD
Post-ICU PTSD is a life altering and life-threatening condition. ICU diaries have shown promising benefits to helping survivors navigate the trauma they carry with them from the ICU and especially delirium. David Richards shares with us his journey during and after the ICU and how his ICU diary has been a key part of his
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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