~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- A large percentage of Canadian patients discharged from Intensive Care Unit (ICU) treatment experience something akin to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
- Patients in ICU are routinely kept under heavy sedation to spare them pain, discomfort, and the subsequent memory of their difficult experience.
- Heavy sedation also makes patients easier for the medical and nursing staff to handle.
- But overuse of sedation and physical restraints make patients feel as if they’re being imprisoned or tortured, and the experience can unleash long-lasting psychological trauma and physical ailments.
- Patients experience horrific hallucinations of violence and victimization, including rape, and these imagined episodes remain on their minds as false memories.
- Post-Intensive Care Syndrome includes devastating muscle weakness, cognitive dysfunction similar to early Alzheimer’s disease or traumatic brain injury, anxiety, depression and full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder.
- While much money is being invested in ICU technology and care, once patients are discharged they are left to deal with their mental trauma on their own.
- Read the case of one particular former patient, an academic, who has made it her life's work to speak to medical conferences around the world about this particular subject.
