[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.0.6″][et_pb_fullwidth_header title=”ICU patients experience long-term cognitive effects” subhead=”Researchers try to understand the possible role of sedatives, sleep disruption, and other medical interventions on the long-term cognitive abilities of ICU patients” text_orientation=”center” header_fullscreen=”on” background_overlay_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.56)” content_orientation=”bottom” _builder_version=”4.0.6″ title_font_size=”50px” subhead_font_size=”28px” subhead_line_height=”1.2em” background_enable_color=”off” background_image=”https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/catalyst\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Benzo-image-1.jpeg”]<\/p>\n
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By Polina Gankina and Natali Trivuncic<\/strong><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_fullwidth_header][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”Section” _builder_version=”4.0.6″ custom_padding=”0px|||||” collapsed=”off”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.0.6″ width=”100%” custom_padding=”4px|||||”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.0.6″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.0.6″ custom_padding=”0px|||||”]<\/p>\n Diazepam, commonly known as Valium, is a type of benzodiazepine. [Photo \u00a9 Dominic Milton Trott]<\/em><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.0.6″]<\/p>\n Locked in an old, abandoned bathroom, Yasmin Awada remembers feeling nervous while she fiddled with the door handle. The sink slowly leaking, as an individual drop dripped into the small puddle of the sink\u2019s basin, the next drop forming seconds afterwards. Mysterious creaks and beeps flooded the room.<\/span><\/p>\n Suddenly, the room filled with a bright light, as she began to open her eyes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt was just a dream, but the noises were real, what I had been hearing were the noises of the ICU,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Awada found herself in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in January after she was diagnosed with bronchitis, causing stress in her lungs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Due to the ICU\u2019s fast-paced and noisy environment, combined with her intense body pain, she was given sedatives to help her rest during the course of her three day stay.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ _builder_version=”4.0.6″ custom_padding=”1px|||||”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.0.6″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.0.6″]<\/p>\n Bright lights, beeping machines, nurses coming in and out of the room, and overhead announcements are common factors which affect patients in the ICU. Patients, like Awada are often given sedatives to help ease them to sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n Although Awada did not suffer any long-term problems after her stay in the ICU, not everyone is as fortunate.\u00a0\u00a0According to a 2013 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine<\/a>, \u201cpatients in medical and surgical ICUs are at high risk for\u00a0long-term cognitive impairment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The study of 821 ICU patients, led by Pratik Pandharipande at Vanderbilt University, found that 40 per cent of patients had global cognition scores similar to those with traumatic brain injury three months after leaving the ICU. One year later, 34 per cent of patients exhibited signs of moderate traumatic brain injury, while 24 per cent had cognitive scores similar to patients with mild Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n “We as health care providers need to be aware of this when patients come to us with memory problems…, and not blow it off as saying, ‘This is all going to get better,’ because we really don’t know,” Pandharipande told USA Today.<\/p>\n In the study, Pandharipande and colleagues found patients who had experienced long durations of delirium during their hospital stay, were at higher risk for cognitive impairments. Since the study\u2019s publishing in 2013, many more researchers have investigated the possible role of sedatives, sleep disruption, and other ICU medical Interventions on the long-term cognitive abilities of ICU patients.<\/p>\n According to the <\/span>Canadian Institute for Health Information<\/span><\/a>, 11 per cent of the population, approximately two million Canadians, stayed in the ICU in 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n Keeping organs functioning has long been the primary concern in the ICU, said Laurent Brochard, director of the interdepartmental Division of Critical Care Medicine at the University of Toronto. Now increasingly, researchers who focus on ICU care are turning to the mind, looking to understand how time in the ICU affects a patient’s long-term cognitive function.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.0.6″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/catalyst\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/icu-1-1.jpg” _builder_version=”4.0.6″ custom_margin=”|-1px||||” custom_padding=”|0px||||”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.0.6″ text_orientation=”center” custom_margin=”-23px||||false|false”]<\/p>\n IV device found in the ICU. [Photo \u00a9 Quinn Dombrowski]<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.0.6″ custom_padding=”0px||1px|||”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.0.6″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.0.6″ custom_margin=”-31px|||||”]<\/p>\n <\/b><\/p>\n Irene Telias, a Critical Care Fellow at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, studies the effects of sleep and sedation in the ICU. She said the most common sedative used for sleep is benzodiazepine, used as an IV drug.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n