The Critically Ill Patient: Types, Critical Care Facilities, Poisoning Assessment and Care of the Unconscious Patient

A lesson on critical illness that opens with the definitions of crisis, critical care and critical care nursing and the categories of patient needing intensive care, from extensive burns and diarrhoeal dehydration to diabetic ketoacidosis, thyroid crisis, cardiac and respiratory failure and poisoning. It maps the critical care facilities, including the intensive care, coronary care, trauma and renal dialysis units and the support departments, then assesses airway, breathing and circulation in the poisoned patient. The second half is the unconscious patient: the mnemonic causes, symptoms, complications such as aspiration pneumonia, decubitus ulcers, muscle dystrophy and contractures, and management under the nursing process with two-hourly turning charts, pain control, glucose control and psychological support for the family.