Background: Ethical decision-making is a cornerstone of intensive care and emergency medicine. In acute scenarios, clinicians often face rapid, high-stakes decisions concerning life and death, made more challenging by time constraints and incomplete information. These decisions are further complicated by economic constraints, limited resources, and evolving technological capabilities.
Question: What decision-making aids and factors can be employed in ethical borderline cases within intensive care medicine?
Results: Fundamental ethical principles such as patient autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice form the basis for medical treatment decisions. Evaluating the patient's will through advanced directives or proxy consensus is crucial, although advanced directives can be ambiguous. Assessing quality of life is increasingly important, with instruments such as the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) being utilized. For older patients, a holistic approach is recommended, focusing on overall health rather than chronological age. In patients with advanced underlying diseases, a multidisciplinary dialogue is essential.
Discussion: Decision-making in intensive care medicine requires careful consideration of medical, ethical, and individual factors. Despite advances in artificial intelligence and prognostic models, human judgment remains crucial. During periods of resource scarcity, ethically sound triage protocols are required. The challenge lies in applying these principles and factors in clinical practice while respecting the individuality of each patient.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00108-024-01781-5 | DOI Listing |
Mayo Clin Proc
January 2025
Division of Cardiovascular Disease, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL; Section of Cardiology, Birmingham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Birmingham, AL. Electronic address:
Neuromodulation
January 2025
Department of Anesthesiology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA.
Objectives: Past studies have shown the efficacy of spinal targeted drug delivery (TDD) in pain relief, reduction in opioid use, and cost-effectiveness in long-term management of complex chronic pain. We conducted a survey to determine treatment variables associated with patient satisfaction.
Materials And Methods: Patients in a single pain clinic who were implanted with Medtronic pain pumps to relieve intractable pain were identified from our electronic health record.
Pain Ther
January 2025
Department of Medicine, Nephrology Division, University of Verona, Verona, Italy.
Introduction: Pain is one of the most frequently reported symptoms in hemodialyzed (HD) patients, with prevalence rates between 33% and 82%. Risk factors for chronic pain in HD patients are older age, long-lasting dialysis history, several concomitant diseases, malnutrition, and others. However, chronic pain assessment in HD patients is rarely performed by specialists in pain medicine, with relevant consequences in terms of diagnostic and treatment accuracy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPediatr Cardiol
January 2025
Division of Cardiac Critical Care, Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Neonates with congenital heart disease (CHD) who undergo cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) are at high-risk for unfavorable neurodevelopmental (ND) outcomes and are recommended for ND evaluation (NDE); however, poor rates have been reported. We aimed to identify risk factors associated with lack of NDE. This single-center retrospective observational study included neonates < 30 days old who underwent CPB and survived to discharge between 2012 and 2018.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNaunyn Schmiedebergs Arch Pharmacol
January 2025
Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No. 111, Dade Road, Guangzhou, 510120, China.
Berberine (BBR) has been proved to inhibit the malignant progression of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but the underlying molecular mechanism still needs to be further revealed. NSCLC cells (A549 and H1299) were treated with BBR. CCK8 assay, colony formation assay, flow cytometry, TUNEL staining and transwell assay were used to examine cell proliferation, apoptosis and invasion.
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