Search Tag: Families
Bright spots: music in the ICU
2018 19 Jun
The intensive care unit (ICU) is a rather obscure place for many people. It is a place where you are exposed to the fragility of existence, where you have to deal with the fine line between life and death. Every day I desperately try to illuminate this dark place, with a conversation, with a joke, with trying to facilitate the patients’ or families’... Read more
How ICU diaries can help patients and families
2018 04 Jun
I work in a small intensive care unit (ICU) where we have been writing diaries since 1992. Initially, they were just little black books with notes by staff and families on how patients were doing during their ICU stay. In 1999, we began taking photos of the patients to illustrate their critically ill period, to help them understand and see what happened.... Read more
Establishing a relationship of trust and care
2018 16 Mar
The chaplain is a resource of ethically competent support and a compassionate caring presence for patients, families and ICU staff. An admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) is often a traumatic experience for both patients and families. Although members of the critical care team are specially trained to provide care and treatment requiring... Read more
Intensive Care Syndrome: Promoting Independence and Return to Employment (InS:PIRE)
2016 27 Sep
A New Model for ICU Rehabilitation It is now well established that many patients and caregivers suffer physical, psychological and social problems in the years and months following critical care discharge (Herridge et al. 2011). Similar to many centres, our intensive care unit (ICU) had no follow-up service available to support patients... Read more
Study: Measuring Respect for ICU Patients and Families
2016 04 Aug
A team from Johns Hopkins University has developed the “ICU-RESPECT” index to evaluate patient and family experiences of respect in the intensive care unit (ICU). The questionnaire was administered to patients and families in 5 ICUs, and showed high reliability and concurrent validity in ICU patients and families. The researchers describe it as a ... Read more
Shared Decision Making in the ICU - Recommendations
2016 22 Mar
Decision-making in healthcare can range along a spectrum - from shared collaborative decision-making by the patient (or surrogate) with the doctor - to the patient asking the doctor to make the decision. Decision-making in the ICU setting is often performed by surrogates, with the attendant stress of having to make a decision for someone else and the... Read more