INTRODUCTION To identify risk factors for early (< three days) intensive care unit (ICU) admission of patients hospitalised with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and not requiring immediate ICU admission, and to stratify the risk of ICU admission on days 1 to 3. METHODS Using the original data from four North American and European prospective multicentre cohort studies of patients with CAP,...

OBJECTIVES To describe the occurrence of delirium in a cohort of older medical intensive care unit (ICU) patients and its short-term duration in the hospital and to determine the association between preexisting dementia and the occurrence of delirium. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING Fourteen-bed medical ICU of an 800-bed university teaching hospital. PARTICIPANTS One hundred eigh...

Background: Patients discharged from an intensive care unit (ICU) often experience painful ICU memories during recovery. Distorted memories are particularly associated with post ICU mental health disorders. Our study aims were to investigate patents’ distorted memory of ICU and related factors. Methods: Twenty-one patients enrolled in this study. The distorted memories were assessed by the ICU ...

OBJECTIVES Advances in oncological care have led to improved short and long-term outcomes of female patients with breast and gynecological cancer but little is known about their prognosis when admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). Our aim was to describe the epidemiology of patients with women's cancer in ICU. DESIGN Retrospective analysis of data of patients with breast and gynecologica...

RATIONALE Admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) may be beneficial to patients with pneumonia with uncertain ICU needs; however, evidence regarding the association between ICU admission and mortality for other common conditions is largely unknown. OBJECTIVES To estimate the relationship between ICU admission and outcomes for hospitalized patients with exacerbation of chronic obstructive pu...

ICU mortality caught our eye: an interesting viewpoint article on preventable mortality by Dijkema and colleagues [1], and a research paper on the impact of ICU admission during morning rounds on mortality by de Souza and colleagues [2]. It appeared to us that an important factor to avoid preventable ICU deaths is not mentioned: the time period before the critically ill patient is finally admit...

BACKGROUND Physical examination has been advocated as a primary determinant of ICU-acquired weakness (ICU-AW). The purpose of the study is to investigate ICU-AW development by using Maximum Inspiratory Pressure (MIP) as a surrogate parameter of the standardized method to evaluate patients' peripheral muscle strength. METHODS Seventy-four patients were recruited in the study and prospectively ...

BACKGROUND Patients with severe sepsis generally respond well to initial therapy administered in the emergency department (ED), but a subset later decompensate and require unexpected transfer to the intensive care unit (ICU). This study aimed to identify clinical factors that can predict patients at increased risk for delayed transfer to the ICU and the association of delayed ICU transfer with ...