Bücher der Reihe Update in Intensive Care Medicine

For many years, intensive care has focused on avoiding immediate death from acute, life-threatening conditions. However, there are increasing reports of a number of lingering consequences for those who do indeed survive intensive care. Examples include on-going high risk of death, neurocognitive defects, significant caregiver burden, and continued high healthcare costs.Surviving Intensive Care, written by the world's experts in this area, is dedicated to better understanding the consequences of surviving intensive care and is intended to provide a synopsis of the current knowledge and a stimulus for future research and improved care of the critically ill.

Whereas a great deal has been learned during the past quarter century about the inflammatory processes associated with sepsis (and other related conditions, such as ischemia/reperfusion injury), our understanding is far less developed with respect to the pathophysiological events that lead to organ dysfunction under these conditions.

Mechanical ventilation and weaning is one of the most common procedures carried out in critically ill patients. This book offers the physiological and clinical basis required to improve the care delivered to patients undergoing mechanical ventilation.

Critically ill and critically injured patients require specialized nutrition support to avoid the complications of progressive malnutrition. From Nutrition Support to Pharmacologic Nutrition in the ICU focuses on the theoretical and practical aspects of the management of this high-risk patient population.

The coronary circulation is central to sustaining myocardial viability. However, unlike the cerebral circulation, whose function is self-sufficient to define life, the coronary circulation determines global blood flow and thus the initial state for the remainder of the body.

Measuring the quality of a complex service like critical care that combines the highest technology with the most intimate caring is a challenge. Donabedian [1) pro posed a framework for thinking about the quality of medical care that separates quality into three components: structure, process, and outcome.

Cerebral Blood Flow: Quantifying Consciousness Although the heart may be the source of energy needed to generate blood flow,and other organs absolutely essential for normal living,the brain is the reason we are alive.

There have been tremendous advances in understanding the cellular mechanisms involved in sepsis and contributing to the development of multiple organ dysfunction and mortality in this setting. The chapters in this book provide up-to-date insights into important pathways that are initiated by sepsis.