Prevalent in critically ill patients, delirium remains poorly understood and difficult to treat. In a cross-sectional study conducted in 12 countries, delirium was identified in close to one third of patients and was independently associated with increased mortality. While such epidemiological accounts represent an important cornerstone for research, scientific efforts are needed to elucidate t...

Medical resources routinely used for intravenous hydration and resuscitation of critically ill patients may be limited in remote regions of the world. When faced with these shortages, physicians have had to improvise with the available resources, or simply do without. We report the successful use of coconut water as a short-term intravenous hydration fluid for a Solomon Island patient, a labora...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this article is to review the facilities of early enteral nutrition in critically ill patients. DATA SOURCES Review articles as well as original papers are the main sources for this contribution. SELECTION CRITERIA Pathophysiologic conditions of intestinal substrate assimilation during hypermetabolism are described. The resulting consequences for enteral alimentatio...

Lactic acid was first discovered in human blood in 1843. Since then it has been used as a prognosticator of outcome in critical illness. Regardless of its etiology, lactate's presence and trend over time have been shown to be independently associated with mortality. Two dynamic lactate measures, the time-weighted average lactate and the absolute change in lactate over the first 24 hours in the ...

This review provides an update on the various techniques that are available to monitor patients during mechanical ventilation with an emphasis on clinical observations and applications in critically ill patients.

Citation Strom T, Martinussen T, Toft P: A protocol of no sedation for critically ill patients receiving mechanical ventilation: a randomized trial.

introduction: using physiologic scoring systems for identifying high-risk patients for mortality has been considered recently. this study was designed to evaluate the values of acute physiology and chronic health evaluation ii (apache ii) and simplified acute physiologic score (saps ii) models in prediction of 1-month mortality of critically ill patients. methods: the present prospective cross ...