Acompañamiento al enfermo crónico o terminal y calidad de vida en familia / Accompaniment to the chronic or terminal patient and quality of life in family

Las enfermedades crónicas o terminales generan afectaciones en quienes las padecen, las familias, los cuidadores y los profesionales en el área de la salud. La identificación de los factores psicosociales, desde el transcurso del padecimiento y hasta el final de la enfermedad, muestran las afectaciones que se viven en las diferentes dimensiones humanas. Indiscutiblemente, elementos como la calidad de vida, las estrategias de afrontamiento, el apoyo a los cuidadores, entre otras, dan forma a la mirada integral que se busca describir durante la presente revisión documental, además de permitir nuevas reflexiones.

The terminal and chronic diseases generate affectations in those who own it, their families, the carers and the professional personnel. The identification of psychosocial factors in the course of the disease to the end show the affectations that are experienced in different human dimensions, unquestionably elements such as quality of life, coping strategies, support for caregivers, among others, give shape to the comprehensive look that seeks to describe during the practices themselves, which in addition to indicating a rethink themselves, the current look of psychology in the area of terminal diseases and accompaniment shows the different views that have been developed so far by means of a state of the art on the subject in question.

Inclusion of the Acute Care Surgeon in the Difficult Airway Protocol: A Nine-Year Experience.

An emergency surgical airway is a lifesaving intervention required in the event of airway loss or respiratory failure when conventional endotracheal intubation cannot be performed. The Acute Care Surgery/Trauma Service is a critical component in the angioedema/difficult airway protocol at our institution. We conducted a retrospective review (2007-2016) to analyze the role our service has in managing patients requiring an emergency surgical airway. Cases were analyzed for preexisting conditions, hospital location of procedure, techniques, complications, and mortality. Our protocol involves early coordination between anesthesia and the Acute Care Surgery/Trauma Service for patients with a potentially difficult airway. If anesthesia is unable to intubate the patient, a surgical airway is performed. Patients are preemptively taken to the operating room (OR) if stable for transport. There were 43 surgical airways performed during the study period. All patients had a failed attempt with oral endotracheal intubation. The most common factors associated with these patients were history of tracheostomy, angioedema, or difficult anatomy. Nineteen (44%) of the surgical airways were performed in the OR. Three deaths (7%) occurred from cardiac or respiratory arrest despite the emergency procedure. No immediate deaths occurred in the patients taken to the OR. Early coordination in patients with a difficult airway is another hospital resource that the acute care surgeon can provide to improve patient outcomes.

Minimally Invasive Esophagectomy: A New Era of Surgical Resection.

Adenocarcinoma of the esophagus continues to increase in incidence and has become a significant health problem in Western countries. While mortality rates are slowly improving from this disease, multimodality treatment, including esophagectomy, has remained critical for optimal outcomes. Esophagectomy has been described as an operation with significant morbidity and mortality, but over the last decade, increased utilization of minimally invasive esophagectomy in an effort to reduce the high rates of morbidity and lengthy hospital stays associated with open esophagectomy has been adopted at many medical centers. We review esophageal cancer treatment modalities, considerations in the current context of neoadjuvant therapy, and increased adoption of minimally invasive approaches.

Cardioprotective effects of growth hormone-releasing hormone agonist after myocardial infarction.

Whether the growth hormone (GH)/insulin-like growth factor 1(IGF-1) axis exerts cardioprotective effects remains controversial; and the underlying mechanism(s) for such actions are unclear. Here we tested the hypothesis that growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) directly activates cellular reparative mechanisms within the injured heart, in a GH/IGF-1 independent fashion. After experimental myocardial infarction (MI), rats were randomly assigned to receive, during a 4-week period, either placebo (n = 14), rat recombinant GH (n = 8) or JI-38 (n = 8; 50 microg/kg per day), a potent GHRH agonist. JI-38 did not elevate serum levels of GH or IGF-1, but it markedly attenuated the degree of cardiac functional decline and remodeling after injury. In contrast, GH administration markedly elevated body weight, heart weight, and circulating GH and IGF-1, but it did not offset the decline in cardiac structure and function. Whereas both JI-38 and GH augmented levels of cardiac precursor cell proliferation, only JI-38 increased antiapoptotic gene expression. The receptor for GHRH was detectable on myocytes, supporting direct activation of cardiac signal transduction. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that within the heart, GHRH agonists can activate cardiac repair after MI, suggesting the existence of a potential signaling pathway based on GHRH in the heart. The phenotypic profile of the response to a potent GHRH agonist has therapeutic implications.