Category: COVID-19

Walking From ICU 104- ICU Rehabilitation

Walking Home From The ICU Episode 104: ICU Rehabilitation

When ICU-acquired weakness is not preventable, or we encounter a patient that has not received the ABCDEF bundle, how can we start the rehabilitation process? What approach can one lone clinician use for initiating recovery or preventing ICU-acquired weakness? Physiotherapist, Lucy Sutton, shares with us incredible insight into ICU rehabilitation. Episode Transcription Kali Dayton 0:01

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Sally’s Story: How Outdated ICU Patient Care is Crippling Outcomes for COVID Patients

Sally’s Story: How Outdated ICU Protocols Are Crippling Outcomes for COVID Patients

Throughout the pandemic, it’s become increasingly obvious that the lack of evidence-based ICU protocols is having a devastating effect on ICU patient care. Over the last two years, I’ve seen countless examples of this, and it breaks my heart because most of these tragedies are totally preventable. One of the most poignant examples of this

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Walking From ICU Episode 94- The ICU Deathtrap

Walking Home From The ICU Episode 94: The ICU Deathtrap

Why are prolonged sedation and immobility lethal? How do our standard practices of automatically sedating every patient on a ventilator deprive them of the chance to survive and thrive? What systemic barriers stop us from implementing evidence-based practices that save lives and drastically change outcomes? Michelle, DNP, ACNP dives deep into powerful case studies that

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Walking From ICU Episode 86 Ventilator Management in the Awake and Walking COVID19 Unit

Walking Home From The ICU Episode 86: Ventilator Management in the Awake and Walking COVID19 Unit

How is the “Awake and Walking ICU” keeping their COVID19 patients mentally and physically functional during severe COVID19? Do they face constant ventilator asynchrony and how do they deal with it? Geoff shares with us his vast experience as a respiratory therapist in walking patients on mechanical ventilation during critical illness and now COVID19. Episode

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Walking From ICU Episode 59 One Nurse Bringing Change to a Hospital System

Walking Home From The ICU Episode 59: One Nurse Bringing Change to a Hospital System

How can one nurse make bring the change? What can happen when a team catches the vision? How can a team transition their culture from deep sedation and immobility to awake and walking? Nora tells us about igniting her team’s fire and the changes they are celebrating.   Episode Transcription Kali Dayton 0:29 Hello, we’ve

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Walking From ICU Episode 57 The Shock of Working in a Normal ICU

Walking Home From The ICU Episode 57: The Shock of Working in a “Normal ICU”

When all you’ve ever known is walking patients on ventilators, what is it like to enter a time machine and go back to sedation and immobility? What did Tara learn taking care of COVID19 patients outside of her “Awake and Walking ICU”? She shares with us her reaffirmed empowerment to change patients’ outcomes through evidence-based

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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

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