Background: Therapeutic activity after stroke is a component of early recovery strategies. Interactive video games have been shown to be safe as an adjunct rehabilitation therapy in the medical intensive care setting, but patients with neurologic disease were often excluded from those protocols.
Objectives: To evaluate the feasibility and safety of individualized interactive video game therapy in critically ill neurologic patients.
Background And Objectives: Daily rounds provide an opportunity for interprofessional collaboration and patient/family engagement, which are critical to stroke care. As part of a quality improvement program, we conducted a baseline assessment to examine interprofessional collaboration and patient/family engagement during the current rounding process in a 12-bed comprehensive stroke center. Findings from the baseline assessment will be used to inform the development, implementation, and evaluation of a new rounding model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSevere brain injury can result in disorders of consciousness (DoC), including coma, vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome, and minimally conscious state. Improved emergency and trauma medicine response, in addition to expanding efforts to prevent premature withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment, has led to an increased number of patients with prolonged DoC. High-quality bedside care of patients with DoC is key to improving long-term functional outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The potential for promotion of intestinal colonization with healthcare-associated pathogens by new antibiotics used to treat infections due to multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacilli is unclear.
Methods: Mice treated for 3 days with daily subcutaneous phosphate-buffered saline (control), ceftazidime/avibactam, ceftolozane/tazobactam, ceftaroline, and meropenem/vaborbactam were challenged with 10,000 colony-forming units (CFU) of vancomycin-resistant (VRE) resistant to each of the antibioics or carbapenemase-producing 1 day after the final treatment dose. The concentrations of VRE or in stool were measured on days 1, 3, 6, and 15 after challenge.
Maintaining cerebral perfusion in the early stages of recovery after stroke is paramount. Autoregulatory function may be impaired during this period leaving cerebral perfusion directly reliant on intravascular volume and blood pressure (BP) with increased risk for expanding cerebral infarction during periods of low BP and hemorrhagic transformation during BP elevations. We suspected that dysautonomia is common during the acute period related to both pre-existing vascular risk factors and potentially independent of such conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe convergence of an interdisciplinary team of neurocritical care specialists to organize the Curing Coma Campaign is the first effort of its kind to coordinate national and international research efforts aimed at a deeper understanding of disorders of consciousness (DoC). This process of understanding includes translational research from bench to bedside, descriptions of systems of care delivery, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, and ethical frameworks. The description and measurement of varying confounding factors related to hospital care was thought to be critical in furthering meaningful research in patients with DoC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStroke remains a leading cause of adult disability. To date, hyperacute revascularization procedures reach 5-10% of stroke patients even in high resource health systems. There is a limited time window for brain repair after stroke, and therefore, the activities such as prescribed exercise in the earliest period will likely have long-term significant consequences.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Phys Med Rehabil
February 2023
Objective: Stroke commonly leads to feelings of isolation and loneliness, especially during the hospital period. The aim of the Communal Eating program was to support patient well-being through introducing opportunities for patients to eat lunch together.
Design: Patients admitted to the Brain Rescue Unit who were identified as appropriate by their attending physicians, nurses, or other clinicians were recruited to attend communal lunch.
Am J Phys Med Rehabil
February 2023
Stroke remains common and is a leading cause of adult disability. While there have been enormous system changes for the diagnosis and delivery of hyperacute stroke treatments at comprehensive stroke centers, few advances have been made in those same centers for treatments focused on behavioral recovery and brain repair. Specifically, during the early hospital period, there is a paucity of approaches available for reduction of impairment beyond what is expected from spontaneous biological recovery.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The aim of this study was to determine the safety and feasibility of an enhanced therapy model for hospitalized stroke patients.
Methods: This was a quasi-experimental cohort study of acute stroke patients from a single hospital. In the intervention group, all hospitalized patients on the acute stroke service were seen by at least two therapy disciplines daily in addition to routine stroke care.
This proceedings article presents actionable research targets on the basis of the presentations and discussions at the 2nd Curing Coma National Institutes of Health (NIH) symposium held from May 3 to May 5, 2021. Here, we summarize the background, research priorities, panel discussions, and deliverables discussed during the symposium across six major domains related to disorders of consciousness. The six domains include (1) Biology of Coma, (2) Coma Database, (3) Neuroprognostication, (4) Care of Comatose Patients, (5) Early Clinical Trials, and (6) Long-term Recovery.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStroke is the second leading cause of death and disability worldwide. Stroke centers have become a central component of modern stroke services in many high-income countries, but their feasibility and efficacy in low, middle, and emerging high-income countries are less clear. Also, despite the availability of international guidelines, many hospitals worldwide do not have organized clinical stroke care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFComa and disorders of consciousness (DoC) are highly prevalent and constitute a burden for patients, families, and society worldwide. As part of the Curing Coma Campaign, the Neurocritical Care Society partnered with the National Institutes of Health to organize a symposium bringing together experts from all over the world to develop research targets for DoC. The conference was structured along six domains: (1) defining endotype/phenotypes, (2) biomarkers, (3) proof-of-concept clinical trials, (4) neuroprognostication, (5) long-term recovery, and (6) large datasets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Evidence suggests that early physical activity can be accomplished safely in the neurocritical care unit (NCCU); however, many NCCU patients are often maintained in a state of inactivity due to impaired consciousness, sensorimotor deficits, and concerns for intracranial pressure elevation or cerebral hypoperfusion in the setting of autoregulatory failure. Structured in-bed mobility interventions have been proposed to prevent sequelae of complete immobility in such patients, yet the feasibility and safety of these interventions is unknown. We studied neurological and hemodynamic changes before and after cycle ergometry (CE) in a subset of NCCU patients with external ventricular drains (EVDs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic may require rationing of various medical resources if demand exceeds supply. Theoretical frameworks for resource allocation have provided much needed ethical guidance, but hospitals still need to address objective practicalities and legal vetting to operationalize scarce resource allocation schemata. To develop operational scarce resource allocation processes for public health catastrophes, including the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, five health systems in Maryland formed a consortium-with diverse expertise and representation-representing more than half of all hospitals in the state.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Purpose: At present, stroke patients receiving intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) undergo monitoring of their neurological status and vital signs every 15 minutes for the first 2 hours, every 30 minutes for the next 6 hours, and every hour thereafter up to 24 hours post-IVT. The present study sought to prospectively evaluate whether post-IVT stroke patients with low risk for complications may safely be cared for utilizing a novel low-intensity monitoring protocol.
Methods: In this pragmatic, prospective, single-center, open-label, single-arm safety study, we enrolled 35 post-IVT stroke patients.
Background: Rapid administration of hypertonic saline 23.4% is crucial in treatment of herniation syndromes. Hypertonic 23.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To measure the impact of a progressive mobility program on patients admitted to a neurocritical critical care unit (NCCU) with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). The early mobilization of critically ill patients with spontaneous ICH is a challenge owing to the potential for neurologic deterioration and hemodynamic lability in the acute phase of injury. Patients admitted to the intensive care unit have been excluded from randomized trials of early mobilization after stroke.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Transtentorial herniation (TTH) is a life-threatening neurologic condition that typically results from expansion of supratentorial mass lesions. A change in bedside pupillary examination is central to the clinical diagnosis of TTH. Materials and.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Health Syst Pharm
December 2017
Purpose: Results of a quality-improvement project to enhance safeguards against "wrong-pen-to-patient" insulin pen errors by permitting secure bedside storage of insulin pens are reported.
Methods: A cluster-randomized controlled evaluation was conducted at an academic medical center to assess adherence with institutional policy on insulin pen storage before and after implementation of a revised policy allowing pen storage in locking boxes in patient rooms. In phase 1 of the study, baseline data on policy adherence were captured for 8 patient care units (4 designated as intervention units and 4 designated as control units).
Upper limb paresis, common in many neurological conditions, is a major contributor of long-term disability and decreased quality of life. Evidence shows that repetitive, bilateral arm movement improves upper limb coordination after neurological injury. However, it is difficult to integrate upper limb interventions into very early rehabilitation of critically ill neurological patients because of patient arousal and medical acuity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Abused women often report a wide range of physical and psychological symptoms that present challenges to providers. Specifically, injuries to the head or strangulation, may initiate neurological changes that contribute to central nervous system (CNS) symptoms. These symptoms are often attributed to mental health diagnoses in this population.
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