ICU

Clinicians need to have a better understanding of the potential impact of patients’ anxiety sensitivity, or “fear of fear,” according to an article published in American Journal of Critical Care. When a patient has anxiety sensitivity, they misinterpret nonthreatening symptoms as threatening, assessing the potential meaning across physical, social or cognitive domains. These “what if” thoughts may trigger a spiral effect, stimulating the nervous system and resulting in stronger sensations and further catastrophic misinterpretations. Read More

A new partnership with AARP Tennessee and the National Museum of African-American Music is allowing the Theraputic Music in the ICU program led by Vanderbilt School of Nursing Professor Ruth Kleinpell, PhD, FAAN, MCCM, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center Professor Joseph Schlesinger, MD, FCCM, to expand with outreach to veterans and older adults at long-term care facilities in Middle Tennessee. Read More

Makayla Cordoza, assistant professor of nursing, has won a multi-year grant of over $730,000 from the National Institute of Nursing Research. She will research how poor and disturbed sleep contributes to ICU delirium. More than one third of patients in the intensive care unit develop ICU delirium, an acute form of cognitive dysfunction that disproportionately increases the risk for worse outcomes and long-term cognitive impairment. Insufficient and disrupted sleep is also a known contributor to short and long-term neurocognitive deficits. Despite this, the sleep-delirium relationship has not been rigorously investigated, Cordoza wrote in the project abstract. Read More

Assistant Professor of Nursing Leanne Boehm, PhD’16, FCCM, has received a grant of more than $3.6 million over five years to examine, the efficacy of telemedicine services among people recovering from post-intensive care syndrome. This effort, funded by the National Institute on Aging, is the first PICS longitudinal cognitive impairment intervention study of its ki Read More

Vanderbilt Hospital tapped a team of experienced nurse practitioners to set up and provide care in its COVID-19 unit. They, along with the rest of the unit professionals, are still at it after nearly a year of what one describes as probably the hardest months of any of their professional lives. Read More

Courtesy of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses Clinicians need to have a better understanding of the potential impact of patients’ anxiety sensitivity, or “fear of fear,” according to an article published in American Journal of Critical Care. When a patient has anxiety sensitivity, they misinterpret nonthreatening symptoms as… Read More