* MILLIONS of Former ICU Patients Will Experience PICS in 2020, Unless Something Changes, Every Year Moving Forward? 40% Will Experience Depression 40% 60% Will Have Cognitive Deficits, Like a Traumatic Brain Injury Will Experience Anxiety 25% Will Have Cognitive Deficits, Like Mild Dementia * The following percentages represent a conservative estimate as found in a cross-section of PICS research. Many researchers place much higher percentages on these symptoms & medical conditions. Our Mission is to Build a Large Community of PostICU Members. As a Group, We Hope to Improve the Above Listed Percentages. In addition to providing educational tools to former ICU patients, their caregivers & families, the medical community, and the public, PostICU believes that its role in the process of addressing the PICS major health crisis is to recruit as many members to join our 501(c)3 nonprofit agency. ​ With the support of a large membership, we will be positioned to approach decision-makers at critical care organizations, hospitals, and health insurance companies. We'd like a seat at the table, so that we can offer commonsense solutions to this complex medical problem. DO YOU OR A LOVED ONE HAVE PICS Take PICS Self-Assessment HOW YOU CAN H ELP? JOIN POSTICU ​ Adding your voice heard to the conversation is the best way for us to get those discussions started. We need as many members as possible to stand with us by joining PostICU. ​ In addition to adding your voice, there are many other ways that we hope our members will participate in PostICU, Inc.'s mission: ​ Be an active participant and work on a project of your choice. ​ ​ Be a passive PostICU, Inc member, receive our newsletter, and join our Members Only Forum to read about and discuss PICS news and information. ​ ​ Donate to PostICU, Inc., contributions go towards "getting the word out," about PICS, through a variety of planned outreach methods. ​ ​ RECRUIT OUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY TO JOIN POSTICU, INC, ​ Join PostICU for FREE ASK OUR RENOWNED PICS EXPERTS A QUESTION Ask one of our highly regarded experts in the field of critical care medicine any question about a PICS related topic. Questions are answered once a month. If your question is selected, we'll send you an email. Click here to find all previously answered questions . Dr. Gerard Weinhouse ​ Brigham & Women's Hospital Medical Director, Respiratory Care Services Pulmonary and Critical Care Harvard Medical School Instructor​ American Board of Internal Medicine Board Certification, Critical Care Medicine, 1995 Learn More About Dr. Weinhouse Dr. Daniela Lamas Brigham & Women's Hospital Critical Care Physician Pulmonary Critical Care Harvard Medical School Instructor​​ American Board of Internal Medicine Board Certification, Critical Care Medicine, 2015 Learn More About Dr. Lamas ASK YOUR QUESTION Select an Expert arrow&v Submit Thank you for submitting your question. Click Here for Previous Answers ARE YOU A FORMER ICU PATIENT CONCERNED ABOUT SYMPTOMS THAT MAY BE PICS RELATED? ​ Click here to learn about the Brigham & Women's Post ICU Clinic . Do not worry if you don't live in the New England area, Brigham & Women's can still help. They can refer you to a clinic near your home because they are a part of a network of hospitals with Post ICU Clinics. Other PostICU Resources POSTICU'S COMPREHENSIVE PICS LIBRARY. PostICU has and continues to build an expansive library of articles, research, and other materials following the history of PICS with materials relevant to former ICU patients and their families, as well as medical providers interested in learning more about PICS. ​ PostICU research includes materials from the time when ICU physicians & nurses first noticed that ICU survivors, displayed different symptoms than other hospital patients, to the most recent research PICS research, which because of COVID-19 has shined a bright light on PICS. ​ ​ Share PICS Related Materials Visit PostICU's PICS Library SHARE YOUR PICS STORY. We all benefit from learning about each other's PICS related experiences. Please share yours. Share Your Story Read PICS Stories Contact Us CONTACT POSTICU Contact Us Submit your questions, we'll get back to you as soon as possible. SUBMIT Thank you for your submission! Donate to PostICU Donations to North American Help Services Alliance, Inc. d/b/a PostICU are tax-deductible in accordance with the provisions of IRS Regulation 501(c)3. We provide our donors with proof of donation. ​ PostICU Headquaters Phone 855.Post.ICU Email support@posticu.org Location Based in United States Serving all Countries Social Media

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There's a new group listed on LinkedIn titled Post Intensive Care Syndrome. Here is a link to view and join this group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12658739 Our group's first goal is to spread the news about our group, and to recruit as many members as possible. We're excited at the prospect of having a large community of post intensive care syndrome LinkedIn group members for a number of reasons: To provide educational resources to former ICU patients, their caregivers & families, the medical community, and the public. To share our belief that everyone in the medical community that provides direct care to people in the ICU, and that is involved in the aftercare of former ICU patients, plays an important role in the process of educating themselves, their peers and their patients about PICS symptoms. To provide education to everyone about the fact that PICS is a major health crisis. To recruit new group members to help educate group members. To encourage former ICU patients and their family members, with LinkedIn accounts, to join this group. ​ With the support of a growing group membership, we hope to position ourselves as a group with clout necessary to "get a seat at the table with decision-makers" at critical care organizations, hospitals, and health insurance companies. Should we be fortunate enough to get a "seat at the table," we hope to position ourselves to solicit advice from this group to share with decision makers about about commonsense solutions to help solved this complex but solvable medical, financial, sociological, problem. Our group also hopes to plans to enhance our existing library of articles, research, locations of PICS treatments centers, and other materials and information about the PICS. We'll ask group members to help us collect materials from PICS researchers, ICU physicians & nurses and others detailing the PICS symptoms to be aware of, availability of PICS clinical in your area and other treatment options. We'll also ask members to help us fashion surveys for our membership on a multitude of topics to find out what our majority finds to be the most important avenues for us to pursue together. If you'd like to participate in the leadership of this group or as an Admin, please drop us a message, at your convenience. Thank you!

Every year, more than 6 million patients are discharged from intensive care units (ICUs) in the United States (U.S.). At least one-third and as many as 80% experience a range of physical, cognitive and mental impairments associated with post-intensive care syndrome (PICS). Many of these patients still need care years after leaving the ICU. These numbers suggest that millions of people are currently afflicted with PICS, many with long term consequences. Moreover, thousands of survivors of the COVID-19 pandemic are facing symptoms similar to PICS long after their “recoveries” are thought to be complete. Given its pervasiveness and severity, what is the medical profession doing to identify, understand and treat PICS? PostICU.org has been tracking medical research journals to answer this question. For several years, we have been searching a number of on-line databases of peer-reviewed medical journals worldwide to find relevant articles. One of these, PubMed, has proven to be a particularly accessible database for the nonprofessional investigator. Founded in 1996, PubMed is a free resource supporting the search and retrieval of biomedical and life sciences literature. PubMed is maintained by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). Its database contains more than 30 million peer-reviewed journal citations. The full text of roughly one-quarter of these articles are open access publications available to the public at no charge. In 2012, less than two years after the seminal Society of Critical Care Medicine meeting that first defined PICS, the first four articles appeared in the PubMed database,. Since then, PICS has become a steady and now rapidly growing focus of medical research. This is shown in the following graph. A small handful of medical journal articles about PICS were published over the years from 2012 to 2015, after which the numbers began to shoot up dramatically. New PICS articles added to the PubMed database jumped from five in 2015 to 23 in 2016. In the last four years, the annual total has nearly quadrupled to an estimated 90 articles in 2020. In total, the PubMed database included 209 PICS articles as of November 1, 2020. Over 40% have been published in the last year. Most of the early articles tried to quantify the number of post-ICU patients afflicted with PICS and the distribution of various physical, mental and cognitive impairments among them. Many also focused on the expansion of protocols used by ICU nurses to include new and enhanced procedures to reduce delirium, enhance mobility and avoid other likely precursors of PICS. As the PICS knowledge base expanded, the medical community began to propose and test specific strategies to treat PICS patients in randomized controlled trials.These include establishment of post-ICU recovery centers specifically designed to help PICS patients.Other strategies include creating a network of peer support groups, including on-line groups, where PICS sufferers can talk freely among themselves.Another idea encourages ICU patients to maintain a diary of their experiences, worries and fears, with contributions by their families and ICU nurses, and continuing during post-discharge recovery.These topics will be examined more closely in future Jim’s Blogs.

The Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) did a lot of the heavy lifting in designating post-intensive care syndrome (PICS) as a distinct medical condition. This makes sense. Every PICS sufferer was once critically ill and treated in a hospital intensive care unit (ICU). SCCM continued to lead after the 2010 inaugural PICS meeting, helping to build a place for PICS in the medical hierarchy. Early work was done by three task forces established during the initial meeting. They met periodically and presented reports at the Second PICS Stakeholders Meeting, also organized by SCCM, and held on September 24 and 25, 2012. After the presentations by the three task groups, attendees incorporated their respective recommendations into a single PICS Action Plan to guide future work. By then, the Awareness and Education Task Group had already published an information brochure and several videos on PICS. It had established an internet site about PICS called MyICUcare.com and it inserted a PICS definition into Wikipedia’s encyclopedia. With input from ICU survivors with PICS, an earlier SCCM brochure on leaving the ICU was modified to include a checklist of questions to identify when symptoms should be reported for follow-up medical care. Given that patients themselves may be unable to process complex information at their ICU discharge, the brochure was designed as much to help family members as the patients themselves. The Barriers Task Group recommended promoting the concept of “functional reconciliation,” making formal comparisons of a patient’s functional capabilities before hospitalization with their post-ICU status. This new concept included a checklist of physical, cognitive and mental health conditions and included case managers to ease transition of care and referral to appropriate care providers. Topics studied by the Research Task Group included partnering with other national organizations working on PICS, such as the Critical Care Societies Collaborative and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The group also recommended seeking funding sources, including NIH institutes, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and various foundations. The Research Task Group also identified topics where further evidence was required to support a sound understanding of patient recovery from PICS. The group urged future research strategies to include a patient-centered focus, and include long-term outcome measures into studies. Development of datasets of patient-level data would benefit both research and practice evaluations, it concluded. At the second meeting in 2012, the number of stakeholder groups grew to 25, from 15 in 2010, and the total number of attendees expanded from 31 to 40. Like the early meeting, most attendees were medical professionals. Importantly, two ICU survivors with PICS were invited to attend the second meeting as patient advocates. This was one of the first and, unfortunately, still rare inclusions of PICS patients in medical decisionmaking. A fuller discussion of the SCCM Second Stakeholders Conference on PICS appears in an article published in Critical Care Medicine in December 2014 entitled “Exploring the Scope of Post-Intensive Care Syndrome Therapy and Care: Engagement of Non-Critical Care Providers and Survivors in a Second Stakeholders Meeting.”The article is included in the PostICU library on this website.

Meet with one of our non-medical professionals to ask any questions about PICS, available services, our research library, articles and other materials of interest, PICS Clinics, etc.

Opportunity to chat with other former ICU patients and their family members about ICU and post ICU experiences.