Stories Category: Intensive Care
Health Professionals Fight Against COVID-19 Myths and Misinformation
Misinformation about the COVID-19 travels faster than the virus and complicates the job of doctors who are treating those infected and responding to concerns of their other patients. An array of myths springing up around... read more
COVID-19: We’re Making Decisions Without Reliable Data
The current coronavirus disease, COVID-19, has been called a once-in-a-century pandemic. But it may also be a once-in-a-century evidence fiasco. At a time when everyone needs better information, from disease modelers and... read more
Clinical Utility and Technique for Lung Ultrasound in COVID-19 Cases
Since the outbreak of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan in December 2019 and its subsequent evolution to a pandemic in March 2020, there has been growing interest in the utility of lung ultrasound in the workup and management... read more
COVID-19: A Message From Concerned Physicians
The COVID-19 pandemic has reached a point where containment is no longer possible. The COVID-19 threat is real, and rapidly getting worse. Many of you are very nervous, some are unsure of the validity of the information you... read more
Care for Critically Ill Patients with COVID-19
Initial reports suggest that COVID-19 is associated with severe disease that requires intensive care in approximately 5% of proven infections. Given how common the disease is becoming, as in prior major severe acute respiratory... read more
Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It
The fascinating, true story of the world's deadliest disease. In 1918, the Great Flu Epidemic felled the young and healthy virtually overnight. An estimated forty million people died as the epidemic raged. Children... read more
Safe Airway Society Principles of Airway Management and Tracheal Intubation Specific to the COVID-19
Transmission of COVID-19 is primarily through droplet spread. These droplets are affected by gravity and may cause direct transmission from close contact or contribute to surface contamination (where the virus may remain... read more
Splitting Ventilators to Provide Titrated Support to a Large Group of Patients
COVID-19 can out-strip the number of mechanical ventilators available to us. This has led to interest in using a single ventilator to support multiple patients. This post will review the theory and evidence regarding this... read more
The Disaster Preparedness Handbook: A Guide for Families
Let survival expert, Army veteran, NASA scientist help you and your family prepare for any kind of disaster—flood, civil unrest, hurricane, fire, war, earthquake. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the world spins like... read more
Models of Peer Support to Remediate Post-Intensive Care Syndrome
A number of different models of peer support are currently being developed to help patients and families recover and grow in the post-critical care setting. Via an iterative process of in-person and email/conference calls,... read more
Humanizing the ICU Experience with Enhanced Communication
Decisions to limit therapy (DTLT) are routine for ICU physicians. Although breaking bad news is one of the most difficult tasks clinicians face, ongoing communication is even more crucial as families (not necessary following... read more
Focus on Clinical Trial Interpretation
In a recently published meta-epidemiological study of 604 randomised clinical trials (RCTs) published between 1977 and 2018 from 53 Cochrane systematic reviews in critical care, less than 7% of the RCTs had overall low risk... read more
Critical Care and the COVID-19 Outbreak in Italy: Early Experience and Forecast
There was an immediate sharp increase in ICU admissions from day 1 to day 14. The increase was steady and consistent. Publicly available data indicate that ICU admissions (n = 556) represented 16% of all patients (n = 3420)... read more
Lung Ultrasonography Features of COVID-19 Pneumonia
As lung abnormalities may develop before clinical manifestations and nucleic acid detection, experts have recommended early chest computerized tomography (CT) for screening suspected patients. The high contagiousness... read more
COVID-19 Airway Management – The Role of Simulation
Health services around the world are faced with the challenge of preparing for the impact of COVID-19 on their communities as we all prepare for a potential global pandemic. I see a great role for simulation in process... read more
Who Gets the Hospital Bed?
Today, Italy has more than 10,000 cases of the coronavirus. There are now simply too many patients for each one of them to receive adequate care. Doctors and nurses are unable to tend to everybody. They lack machines to ventilate... read more
Decrease Delirium in Older ICU Adults Using Music
Researchers from the Regenstrief Institute and Mayo Clinic are leading the first study to test whether exposure to music can decrease delirium in older adults who are receiving mechanical ventilation in the Intensive Care... read more
