Critical care (ICU)

Lines and sedation in the ICU, shock and vasopressors by mechanism, mechanical ventilation, organ support and nutrition.

27 pages

Crisis

• Advanced life support in hospitalWhen the heart stops in hospital, the team gives good chest compressions, shocks the heart if…
• Intra-abdominal hypertension and abdominal compartment syndromeWhen pressure inside the belly rises too high, it squeezes the organs and blood vessels and can…
• Ventilator alarms, auto-PEEP and the DOPE approachWhat to do when a ventilated patient suddenly gets worse or the ventilator alarms: check the…

Concept

• Analgesia and sedation in the ICU: targets and scalesICU patients need relief from pain and distress, but too much sedation keeps them longer on the…
• Capnography: the waveform and what it tells youA capnograph draws the carbon dioxide of each breath as a wave, showing at once whether a…
• Care after cardiac arrestAfter the heart restarts, the ICU protects the brain and heart, finds the cause of the arrest…
• Catheter-related bloodstream infection: prevention and responseGerms can travel along a central line into the blood; careful insertion, clean handling and…
• Central lines in the ICU: choice, checks and removalA central line is a thin tube placed in a large vein near the heart to give strong drugs and…
• Delirium in the ICU: screening and preventionMany very sick ICU patients become confused for days; regular checks find it early and simple…
• Haemodynamic monitoring: arterial line, CVP, cardiac output and lactateHaemodynamic monitoring measures pressure, blood flow and tissue oxygen so the ICU team can tell…
• Mechanical ventilation modes: volume, pressure and supportThe ways a ventilator can deliver a breath: by pushing a set volume, by holding a set pressure…
• NIV and high-flow nasal oxygen in the ICUTwo ways to support breathing without a tube in the windpipe: a tight mask that gives pressure…
• Nutrition in the ICU: enteral firstSeriously ill patients need food; the best route is a tube into the stomach, and a vein is used…
• PEEP, plateau pressure and lung protectionPEEP keeps small air sacs open at the end of each breath; plateau pressure shows how hard the…
• Renal replacement therapy in the ICU: when and whichWhen the kidneys fail in a very sick patient, a machine can clean the blood and remove extra…
• Stress-ulcer prophylaxis: who needs itVery sick ICU patients can bleed from shallow stomach ulcers; acid-reducing medicines help those…
• The ICU daily bundle (FAST HUGS and similar checklists)Each day the ICU team runs a short checklist so that simple, proven steps such as feeding, clot…
• Transfusion thresholds in the ICUIn intensive care, red cells are given only when haemoglobin falls quite low or the patient is…
• Vasopressors and inotropes by receptor and mechanismVasopressors tighten blood vessels to raise blood pressure; inotropes make the heart squeeze…
• Ventilating ARDS: low volumes, prone position and moreHow the ventilator and the patient's position are used to support badly inflamed lungs without…
• Ventilator-associated pneumonia: the prevention bundleA lung infection that can start after a patient has been on a breathing machine for some days…

Assessment

• Brain death: clinical testing (Colombia)Brain death means the whole brain, including the brainstem, has stopped for good; doctors…
• Fever in the ICU: an approachA new fever in an intensive care patient can mean infection or other problems; doctors examine…
• Fluid responsiveness: when more fluid helpsBefore giving more fluid, the ICU team checks whether the heart will actually pump more blood…
• Shock: a bedside approach by typeShock means the organs are not getting enough oxygen; the team finds out why at the bedside and…
• The comatose patient in the ICUA person in a coma cannot be woken and does not respond; doctors protect the airway, fix quick…
• Weaning and the spontaneous breathing trialHow the team checks, step by step, whether a patient is ready to breathe without the ventilator…

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← Anaesthesia and critical care

Educational content; it does not replace supervised training, your institution's protocols or the anaesthetist's or intensivist's decision. It contains no doses and no ventilator or infusion settings.

Representative model, for educational purposes only.