Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome M. Michele Mariscalco Acute lung injury (ALI) is a syndrome of lung inflammation and increased vascular permeability. It is associated with clinical, radiologic, and physiologic abnormalities…
Acute Hepatic Failure Penelope Terhune Louis Acute hepatic failure is a clinical syndrome that occurs within weeks to a few months of the onset of liver disease in patients in…
Continuous Drip Feeding Fernando Stein Continuous drip feeding is used in those patients who cannot tolerate boluses of food or in those patients in whom the presence of a large…
Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy Stuart L. Goldstein When acute renal failure occurs in critically ill patients, severe cardiovascular, respiratory, and metabolic instability may contraindicate standard intermittent dialysis techniques. In such…
Acute Hemodialysis Stuart L. Goldstein Hemodialysis is a treatment used to augment or replace renal excretory function. Most water-soluble substances that are not protein- or tissue-bound in the extracellular fluid…
Acute Peritoneal Dialysis Eileen D. Brewer Arundhati S. Kale Peritoneal dialysis (PD) therapy has been used for decades to treat acute and chronic renal failure in children because it is…
Abdominal Paracentesis Eileen D. Brewer Abdominal paracentesis is a useful procedure to obtain diagnostic information for evaluation of ascites, peritonitis, and intraperitoneal hemorrhage or to initiate therapeutic interventions, such as…
Tracheostomy Fernando Stein Jorge M. Karam Nadeem I. Shafi A tracheostomy is an opening created surgically through the neck and into the trachea (windpipe). A tracheostomy tube usually is placed…
Extubation Fernando Stein Jorge M. Karam When the indications that prompted endotracheal intubation no longer exist, extubation should be executed carefully. Three major concerns in the removal of a tube…
