Clinical Intensive Care Book

This highly practical, problem-oriented handbook is intended for medical and nursing staff who work with critically ill patients, particularly in an intensive care setting. It offers a pathophysiological basis for understanding the hour-by-hour management of the critically ill. The major part of the book is organized around general clinical issues that are common to all patients in intensive care, including fluid therapy, sedation and analgesia, monitoring, multiorgan failure and acute cardiovascular and respiratory failure. Later chapters cover specific problems relating to particular organ systems, and to the special issues of pediatric and obstetric critical care. A compendium of detailed practical advice, it deals also with ethical problems, quality assurance, and questions of outcome, and includes "trouble-shooting" sections addressing common clinical dilemmas in intensive care. Designed for regular use and rapid consultation.