Focus on long-term cognitive, psychological and physical impairments after critical illness

Excerpt

The decades from 1990 to 2010 saw a clinical and research focus on technical, pharmaceutical, and scientific advances in intensive care medicine, and the key question was “Will my patient survive or die?” More recent decades have focused on “How will my patient survive?”, and in consequence, many studies are investigating patient-centered outcomes after critical illness [1]. The adverse long-term outcomes are collectively known as post intensive care syndrome (PICS). In general, PICS refers to long-term physical, neurocognitive and psychiatric sequelae that adversely affect health-related quality of life (HRQL) and daily functioning [2]. The Center for Disease Control defines HRQL as ‘an individual’s (or a group’s) perceived physical and mental health over time’. HRQL is a multidimensional construct which can be individual, intimate and complex, and it may be nearly impossible to ‘press’ such a construct into a score or quantitative summary. Nevertheless, some important recent investigations have highlighted specific aspects of long-term outcome and HRQL after critical illness, and they have provided approaches for prevention or attenuation of long-term morbidities. …