Defining the practice of "no escalation of care" in the ICU.

OBJECTIVE: Withdrawal or withholding of life-sustaining therapies precedes most deaths in the modern ICU. As goals of care for critically ill patients change from curative to palliative, this transition often occurs abruptly, but a slower more staggered approach may also be used. One such approach is "no escalation of care", often the first step in this transition at the end-of-life. We aimed to determine the prevalence of no escalation of care designation for ICU decedents and identify which interventions are involved. DESIGN: We performed a retrospective medical record review of all patients who died over a two year period. Records with documentation of no escalation of care in physician orders or progress notes, or other instructions suggesting sequential or selective limitation of interventions were included. SETTING: Sixteen bed medical ICU at a single large academic hospital. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Of a total of 310 ICU decedents, 95 (30%) had a no escalation of care designation before death. Hemodialysis, vasopressors, and blood transfusions were the interventions more likely to be withheld. For ongoing therapies, hemodialysis, blood transfusions, and antibiotics were more likely to be withdrawn. Mechanical ventilation, hydration, and nutrition were less likely to be withheld or withdrawn. A minority had a palliative care consult (15%) or ethics consult (4%) while in the ICU. Time from no escalation of care designation to death averaged 0.8 days (range, 0-5 d). CONCLUSION: No escalation of care designation occurs in a significant proportion of ICU decedents shortly before death. Some interventions are more likely to be limited than others using a no escalation of care approach.

Recognizing and reporting elder abuse and neglect.

Elder abuse (physical, sexual, or psychological) and neglect (by caretakers or self-neglect) are major public health problems. Most cases are not identified by clinicians and reported to the appropriate government agencies. There are some barriers to clinician identification and reporting of cases of elder abuse or neglect. These barriers mainly result from a lack of clinician education and comfort regarding this topic. We propose that clinician understanding of the phenomenon of elder mistreatment, familiarity with a simple approach to screening and identification of cases, awareness of risk factors and warning signs, and awareness of appropriate interventions will help to eliminate these barriers and result in clinicians properly fulfilling their duty to help protect their most vulnerable elderly patients.

A case study of delayed serotonin syndrome: lessons learned.

Serotonin syndrome is a potentially life-threatening condition that results from excessive serotonin agonism of the central and peripheral nervous system. Though serotonin syndrome is most often associated with ingestion of more than one serotonergic drug, many other mechanisms have been associated with serotonergic excess. This case study presents a 79-year-old African-American female, an assisted living resident, who presented to the emergency department with altered mental status, acute onset of "chills," reduced appetite, urinary incontinence, and an elevated temperature of 103 degrees F (39.4 degrees C). Extensive initial diagnostic findings were negative for urinary tract infection, systemic infection, pneumonia, myocardial infarction, and stroke. Despite aggressive medical management, including intravenous hydration and broad-spectrum antibiotics, the patient continued to become more confused, agitated, and despondent over the subsequent 24 hours. The initial working diagnosis did not include serotonin syndrome, but once other studies did not reveal an etiology of the symptoms and the patient continued to be delirious, paroxetine was discontinued and all symptoms resolved within 48 hours of last dose. Voluntary reporting, postmarketing surveillance, and implementation of well-designed randomized clinical trials are all mechanisms to gather data on serotonin syndrome. These practices will provide future researchers with needed information to solidify diagnostic criteria, educate health care professionals, and safeguard the public against this preventable and potentially lethal drug-drug interaction.