(Press-News.org) Monitoring pain and providing analgesics to patients in intensive care units (ICUs) during non-surgical procedures, such as turning and washing, can not only reduce the amount of pain but also reduce the number of serious adverse events including cardiac arrest, finds new research in BioMed Central's open access journal Critical Care.
Although pain at rest is routinely noted, pain during procedures is less regularly reported and its effect on patients unknown. To assess this missing information and to implement techniques to help better control pain where necessary, educational posters and training were used by the University of Montpellier Saint Eloi Hospital.
The study showed that being moved for nursing care is one of the most painful procedures experienced by the patient during their stay in the ICU. It also found that serious adverse effects, such as cardiac arrest, problems with heart rate, breathing, or ventilator distress, were associated with severe pain during these procedures.
The training part of this study increased the amount of analgesics used and reduced both severe pain while being moved as well as serious adverse effects. Dr Gérald Chanques commented, "Our nursing and medical staff reported an increased awareness throughout, and after the project. There can be a disagreement between nursing staff and doctors about levels of pain medication, usually because of issues to do with side effects of the medication. However we found that increased levels of pain medication did not appear to lead to increased side effects, indicating that staff were being very careful in assessing the balance between benefit and risk for individual patients."
###
Media Contact
Dr Hilary Glover
Scientific Press Officer, BioMed Central
Tel: +44 (0) 20 3192 2370
Mob: +44 (0) 778 698 1967
Email: hilary.glover@biomedcentral.com
Notes
1. Decreasing severe pain and serious adverse events while moving intensive care unit patients: a prospective interventional study (the NURSE-DO project)
Audrey de Jong, Nicolas Molinari, Sylvie de Lattre, Claudine Gniadek, Julie Carr, Mathieu Conseil, Marie-Pierre Susbielles, Boris Jung, Samir Jaber and Gerald Chanques
Critical Care (in press)
Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.
Article citation and URL available on request on the day of publication.
2. Critical Care is a high quality, peer-reviewed, international clinical medical journal. Critical Care aims to improve the care of critically ill patients by acquiring, discussing, distributing, and promoting evidence-based information relevant to intensivists.
3. BioMed Central is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector. @BioMedCentral
Reducing the pain of movement in intensive care
2013-04-18
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Fishing for solutions
2013-04-18
Equipped with the zebrafish genome, researchers have designed a method to assay the function of each and every gene and to explore the effects genetic variation has on zebrafish. So far the team has generated one or more mutations in almost 40% of all zebrafish genes.
The resource will be a comprehensive catalogue of how changes to our genes can have physical and biochemical consequences, giving other researchers the tools to understand human disease.
Many genes are similar between the human genome and those of less complex animals. As a vertebrate, the zebrafish (Danio ...
Family ties: Relationship between human and zebrafish genomes
2013-04-18
Researchers demonstrate today that 70 per cent of protein-coding human genes are related to genes found in the zebrafish and that 84 per cent of genes known to be associated with human disease have a zebrafish counterpart. Their study highlights the importance of zebrafish as a model organism for human disease research.
The team developed a high-quality annotated zebrafish genome sequence to compare with the human reference genome. Only two other large genomes have been sequenced to this high standard: the human genome and the mouse genome. The completed zebrafish genome ...
DREAM and Sage Bionetworks tap the wisdom of the crowd to impact breast cancer prognosis
2013-04-18
ABOUT THE DREAM PROJECT
The Dialogue on Reverse Engineering Assessment and Methods Project (DREAM Project), founded in 2006 by Andrea Califano (Columbia University) and Gustavo Stolovitzky (IBM), was originally conceived as an initiative to advance thenascent field of network biology through the organization of Challenges on network reconstruction and pathway inference. Since the first set of network inference challenges of 2007 (DREAM2) the concept of using collaborative-competitions as a vehicle to carry on a meaningful dialogue in the computational biology community ...
Genome sequencing of the living coelacanth sheds light on the evolution of land vertebrate
2013-04-18
An historic fish, with an intriguing past, now has had its genome sequenced, providing a wealth of information on the genetic changes that accompanied the adaptation from an aquatic environment to land. A team of international researchers led by Chris Amemiya, PhD, Director of Molecular Genetics at the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason (BRI) and Professor of Biology at the University of Washington, will publish "The African coelacanth genome provides insights into tetrapod evolution" April 18 as the cover article in Nature. The coelacanth genome was sequenced ...
Bear baiting may put hunting dogs at risk from wolves
2013-04-18
Bear hunters will tell you that a good way to attract a bear is to put out bait. And in 10 states, including Michigan and Wisconsin, that's perfectly legal. Hunting dogs are another useful technique in the bear-hunter's toolkit, and 17 states say that's just fine.
But who else likes bear bait? Gray wolves, that's who. And wolves that are feeling territorial about a bear bait stash can—and sometimes do—kill hunting dogs released at the bait site.
Like most interactions between wildlife and human beings, wolf attacks on hunting dogs illustrate a tangled trade-off: ...
Scientists produce best image yet of atoms moving in real time
2013-04-18
VIDEO:
Mapping molecular motions -- the "magic " of chemistry revealed. Despite the enormous number of possible arrangements of atoms during a structural transition, such as occurs with changes in charge distribution...
Click here for more information.
TORONTO, ON – Call it the ultimate nature documentary. Scientists at the University of Toronto have recorded atomic motions in real time, offering a glimpse into the very essence of chemistry and biology at the ...
Discovery may help prevent HIV 'reservoirs' from forming
2013-04-18
April 17, 2013 — (BRONX, NY) — Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have discovered how the protein that blocks HIV-1 from multiplying in white blood cells is regulated. HIV-1 is the virus that causes AIDS, and the discovery could lead to novel approaches for addressing HIV-1 "in hiding" – namely eliminating reservoirs of HIV-1 that persist in patients undergoing antiretroviral therapy. The study was published today in the online edition of the journal Cell Host & Microbe.
Antiretroviral therapy can reduce blood levels of HIV-1 until ...
Blood pressure out of control at safety-net clinics
2013-04-18
Federally funded safety-net clinics for the uninsured lag behind other health care providers in controlling blood pressure among the low-income patients who rely on them for care, a new Michigan State University analysis suggests.
High blood pressure, or hypertension, is a major risk factor for cardiovascular complications including heart disease and stroke, and is especially common and dangerous for patients with diabetes, said lead researcher Adesuwa Olomu, associate professor in the MSU Department of Medicine.
In recent decades, a growing share of the 67 million ...
IDRI and Medicago report positive results for Phase I clinical trial for an H5N1 vaccine
2013-04-18
SEATTLE, WA, and QUEBEC CITY, QC, April 17, 2013 – IDRI (Infectious Disease Research Institute), a Seattle-based non-profit research organization that is a leading developer of adjuvants used in vaccines combating infectious disease, and Medicago Inc. (TSX: MDG; OTCQX: MDCGF), a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing highly effective and competitive vaccines based on proprietary manufacturing technologies and Virus-Like Particles (VLPs), today reported positive interim results from a Phase I clinical trial for an H5N1 Avian Influenza VLP vaccine candidate ("H5N1 ...
Anti-sickling therapies should be focus for sickle cell science
2013-04-18
AUGUSTA, Ga. – Pain is an undeniable focal point for patients with sickle cell disease but it's not the best focus for drug development, says one of the dying breed of physicians specializing in the condition.
Rather scientists need to get back to the crux of the disease affecting 1 in 500 black Americans and find better ways to prevent the hallmark sickling that impedes red blood cells' oxygen delivery, damaging blood vessel walls and organs along the way, said Dr. Abdullah Kutlar, Director of the Sickle Cell Center at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents ...