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Effective patient communication is a critical component to ICU patient care and to family member understanding of a critical illness.
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Clinicians generally believe that mechanical ventilation rests and restores the respiratory muscles in acute respiratory failure.
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Although protocol-driven sedation and analgesia management has been shown to improve patient outcomes, adherence to these guidelines is often poor.
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In This Issue: Shingles vaccine added to CDC list of vaccines for adults 60 and older; CDC recommends Tdap for postpartum women; new study suggests sequential therapy with antibiotics for H. pylori may be more effective than standard therapy; FDA Actions.
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This study of a very large prospective series of cardiac arrests in over 500 US hospitals found that survival rates were lower during nights and weekends, differences that persisted despite adjustments for patient, resuscitation event, and hospital characteristics.
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The risk of venous thromboembolism was double in users of a transdermal contraceptive as compared to users of an oral contraceptive with a 35 mcg ethinyl estradiol component. Warning: no abstract skimming — it's worth your while to keep reading!
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This multi-center, randomized, double-blind clinical trial demonstrated that the addition of vasopressin to patients receiving norepinephrine for management of septic shock had no effect on mortality when compared to increasing the norepinephrine dose.
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Intravascular volume expansion has long been advised as an effective temporizing technique for patients with cardiac tamponade prior to drainage of the fluid, but there is little data supporting this practice.
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Vernakalant is a new investigational anti-arrhythmic drug. The compound is relatively selective, blocking the early-activating potassium channel and the frequency-dependent sodium channel; it has a half-life of two to three hours.
