Brief description of media:

Difficult mask ventilation during routine induction of anaesthesia in a child aged 1 to 8 years

Brief description of media:

The family is one of the basic units of society and has a great influence on its members. When a family member becomes ill, the illness affects the well-being of other family members, causing changes in the life of the whole family. Critical illness often occurs without warning and there is little time for patients and their families to prepare. If family members’ immediate needs can be met, desirable consequences for both family members and patients can be achieved. In order to meet family member’s needs, critical care units’ nurses must be able to identify their needs accurately [1, 2]. Every year in the United States, approximately 20% of all deaths occur in an intensive care unit (ICU), and family members suffer from being withdrawn or withheld. Many of patients are unable to communicate because of sedation, mechanical ventilation, confusion, and comatose. This results in much of the burden of decision-making and treatment choices on the patients’ family members. This may affect family members by increasing their stress levels and increasing their risk for psychological and physical symptoms [3].

Brief description of media:

Jane and her husband both got coronavirus in March within two weeks of each other and have been suffering the effects ever since. Doing too much leaves them exhausted, breathless for hours, and with aching lungs for days. “I am low-key terrified I’ll never get better,” she tells me.
They’re among the estimated 60,000 people in the UK with Long-Covid, where symptoms last longer than 12 weeks. NHS England have said that long-lasting symptoms include “breathing difficulties, enduring tiredness, reduced muscle function, impaired ability to perform vital everyday tasks, and mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression”. Jane describes it as being “bone numbingly tired, like you haven’t slept in six weeks, and none of your muscles work properly”.

Brief description of media:

As if contracting COVID-19 wasn’t bad enough, in some cases, the virus seems to leave behind a little memento which stays in your body, even after you’ve technically ‘recovered’.
Many who were infected in the early stages of the pandemic are still struggling with symptoms, which some are calling “long COVID”.
The physical effects range from mild to severe and have been experienced by both adults and children.
The frequency is enough that there are now calls for the condition to be classified as an “occupational disease” for frontline workers.

Brief description of media:

Most people recover from COVID-19 within two weeks; however, early figures suggest that around one in seven people have symptoms lasting for at least four weeks, and a smaller proportion are sick for months.

Brief description of media:

Barbara Gould isn’t the same person she was at this time last year, when she was first hospitalized with COVID-19.

When a person spends three months in four different hospitals, everything changes.

The north Boulder resident was on a ventilator for three times as long as the average COVID-19 patient at UCHealth. She lost her hair. She had to relearn how to walk and talk. Her liver sustained untreatable damage. She’s spent months in recovery.

Her journey hasn’t been an easy one, but with the support of her family and her faith community, Gould has found her way.

“I do not recognize myself yet,” she said. “But I will.”

Brief description of media:

They survived serious cases of Covid-19, sometimes spending weeks on a ventilator, but not without complications. Now, a special clinic at an L.A. hospital is helping them get back to their lives.

Brief description of media:

Long-term effects from COVID-19 are definitely real and have been experienced firsthand by many in the medical profession. British medical professor Paul Garner, for instance, has described a seven week “roller coaster of ill health, extreme emotions, and utter exhaustion.” But the reality of the condition is often far different from its usual depiction in the zeitgeist.

Brief description of media:

Nic Brown is lucky, and he knows it.
The 38-year-old father of three is recovering from the coronavirus after spending 10 days in Cleveland Clinic’s intensive care unit. He was kept mostly sedated while hooked up to a ventilator to help him breathe.
“There was a time during this process where the hospital reached out to my wife to have the discussion about end-of-life options,” Brown, of Tuscarawas County, Ohio, said. “It was very emotional for all of us.”
While a majority of patients who become infected with the coronavirus appear to have mild symptoms or no symptoms at all, it’s becoming clear that those with the most severe complications must spend a significant amount of time in the ICU.

“We have people on ventilators for 20 to 30 days,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said during a news conference this week.

It’s a similar situation at the Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans, which has become another hot spot in the coronavirus outbreak. Doctors there say COVID-19 patients rarely get better within two or three days, instead of remaining on mechanical oxygen for one to two weeks.

Critical care doctors know that the longer patients remain in the ICU, the more likely they are to suffer long-term physical, cognitive and emotional effects of being sedated.

In fact, those effects have a name: “post-intensive care syndrome.” Some physicians call it post-ICU delirium.

Brief description of media:

Jessica, a nurse, is a survivor of post-intensive care syndrome (PICS).
Below, she recounts her experiences in the ICU and after discharge.
As you read her story, think about how you and your peers provide
care to critically ill patients—and how you might be able to prevent
some of the negative effects experienced by ICU patients.

Brief description of media:

Critical care services are atypical in the wide heterogeneity of their patients. This is in part a reflection of the way in which these services have evolved. The progress of intensive care in the UK has been described as ‘haphazard’, consisting of ‘largely unplanned and unevaluated’ developments that occurred in reaction to changes in surgical and medical practice. There has been debate about the configuration of critical care services, fuelled by a perception that there are not enough beds in some parts of the country and that existing beds are not in the right places. During the late 1990s, the NHS Executive established a National Expert Group to review adult critical care services in the UK and to produce a national Framework for future organisation and care delivery. As a result, in May 2000 a critical care modernisation plan was announced.

Brief description of media:

Around one in five people have lingering side-effects of Covid-19 up to five weeks after initially falling sick, according to a big new analysis in the UK. Furthermore, around one in 10 people with Covid-19 appear to experience nagging symptoms for 12 weeks or longer.

The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released preliminary information from its report on the prevalence of “long Covid,” the lingering impact of the coronavirus infection that can sometimes last for months. A number of other studies across the world have attempted to tackle this question before, but this new work is one of the biggest and most extensive investigations yet. The ONS says the report is “very much a work in progress" and still in its infancy, but it’s revealed some important insights into the mysterious phenomenon of long Covid.