Walking Home From The ICU Episode 124 Alcohol Withdrawal and Phenobarbital

Walking Home From The ICU Episode 124: Alcohol Withdrawal and Phenobarbital

Alcohol withdrawal can send our patients into a spiral of delirium and downstream complications in the ICU. What are the risks of benzodiazepines for our patients even during alcohol withdrawal? How can we give our patients the best chance to walk away from ETOH withdrawal and critical illness? Dr. Obiajulu Anozie, MD joins us in

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Walking Home From The ICU Episode 123 Updating 50 Years of Perspective and Practices

Walking Home From The ICU Episode 123: Updating 50 Years of Perspective and Practices

Dr. Peter Murphy has worked in critical care for nearly 50 years. As a seasoned expert in the field, he shares with us his own wake-up call to the reality of decades-old sedation practices. He provokes the question: “Am I leading or fighting evolution?” Episode Transcription Kali Dayton 0:22 For anyone that works in medicine,

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Walking Home From The ICU Episode 122 Caleigh’s Voice Through Critical Illness

Walking Home From The ICU Episode 122: Caleigh’s Voice Through Critical Illness

Caleigh has had it both ways in the ICU. She has been sedated and immobilized which led to battling delirium and ICU acquired weakness. She has also been awake and mobile while intubated and walked out the doors. Listen to Caleigh share her insights and what meant to her to be communicative, connected, and autonomous

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Walking Home From The ICU Episode 119: The Trauma of Delirium After a Traumatic Birth

Walking Home From The ICU Episode 119: The Trauma of Delirium After a Traumatic Birth

How can delirium contribute to the trauma of a traumatic birthing experience? Midwife and ICU survivor, Amber, shares with us her personal journey through and after the ICU. Episode Transcription Kali Dayton 0:35 Okay, it’s time to bring it all back to the real reason for transitioning to an “Awake and Walking ICU”, which is

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Walking Home From The ICU Episode 118 Mobility Saves Lives During ECMO

Walking Home From The ICU Episode 118: Mobility Saves Lives During ECMO

During the worst of the COVID pandemic, how did this Baylor Scott and White The Heart Hospital- Plano CVICU decrease their COVID mortality rates by 30%? Jenelle Sheasby, MSN, RN, tells us about the transformation in their mobility practices. Episode Transcription Kali Dayton  0:35 Okay, I am really excited about this episode, we have been

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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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Perception Versus Reality: Debunking The Myths About Medically-Induced Comas

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