Critical Care Nursing: Concepts, Admission and Assessment, Burns Management, Tracheostomy and ICU Problems

A complete critical care nursing unit in four sections. The concepts part defines critical illness, crisis and critical care nursing and sets out the aims, goals and purposes of the specialty. Assessment and admission cover the critically ill patient and the unconscious patient from the airway and breathing survey through the secondary assessment. Management of specific conditions follows, with detailed burns care under the Rule of Nines and the Lund and Browder chart, fluid replacement in the first forty-eight hours, pain control, infection prevention and rehabilitation. The final section is the special procedures and investigations: tracheostomy from indications through stoma maturation, tube changes and the early and late complications, blood gas and electrolyte interpretation, and the common ICU problems of nutrition, pain, impaired communication, sensory-perceptual disturbance and sleep deprivation.