PICS/PICS-F overview for caregivers.

Since critical care began over 50 years ago, there have been tremendous advances in the science and practice that allow more severely ill and injured patients to survive. Each year, millions of people are discharged back to the community. The recognition of long-term consequences for ICU survivors and their families is a growing concern. Critical care practitioners have always known that the patients have a long road to recovery after discharge from the ICU. In the 2 past decades, research has revealed how remarkably common and devastating long-term consequences of critical illness can be and how much some patients and their families suffer (1–9).
These consequences in patients are referred to as postintensive care syndrome (PICS) and in families as postintensive care syndrome-family (PICS-F) (1).
The research findings are disturbing and a source of dis tress to critical care practitioners. In response, they are work ing hard to identify the risk factors for PICS and are rapidly implementing ways to mitigate their impact. Although the critical care community is becoming increasingly aware of PICS, patients, families, and the posthospital care community need more information. They are the ones who are deal most directly PICS and PICS-F.
There are three key emerging concepts driving these initiatives: a focus on safe transitions and handoffs, an emphasis on family-centered care, and the acceptance that critical care is defined by the whole episode of care, not just the ICU stay. It is clear that those in the field of critical care have a responsibility to increase the awareness and to work with those who care for patients post-ICU to identify and treat the consequences of critical illness in patients and families.

Power point's objective: Define the characteristics of Post-Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS); Identify the incidence, prevalence and risk factors of PICS; and Identify strategies for preventing and managing PICS.