What is Intensive Therapy

The intensive therapy is a Unit in which intensive care of the Health, which are intended to give life support to people in a state critical.

Most hospitals have intensive care units, these with known as ICUs, there are special units dedicated to the care of newborns, the so-called NICU (neonatal intensive care unit).

What types of patients need intensive therapy?

These units admit people with a serious health impairment, who deserve the use of special equipment or devices to maintain or monitor some vital function such as breathing.

Patients with extensive skin burns or multiple trauma are also admitted, people who have suffered a heart attack, serious infections with or without sepsis, extensive neurological damage, poisoning or people in a state of eat.

These units also provide support in the immediate postoperative period of complex surgeries such as brain and some abdominal, orthopedic or oncological, especially in patients with previous health status deteriorated.

What care are provided to patients in these units?

Patients who are managed in intensive care are generally kept under sedation. Many of them deserve to be connected to mechanical ventilation equipment, cardiac monitors, central venous pressure monitors, drug infusion pumps, nutrition total parenteral, among others.

In these units, patients have a team of highly specialized healthcare professionals available on a permanent basis. This allows a quick and timely diagnosis and management of events and complications.

What staff does an intensive care unit have?

In these units there is a team of highly specialized health workers. The doctors who work here are intensivists, many of them are anesthesiologists or internists with a specialization in medicine review.

Other team members include staff from Nursing, is also highly qualified and the physiotherapists who, in addition to mobilizations, intervene in procedures such as respiratory physiotherapy.

These personnel work rotating day and night shifts that allow 24-hour continuous care.

What is the prognosis for a patient in intensive care?

Admission to these units is often associated with a terminal health condition. This is not entirely true.

A patient who deserves this care is not necessarily going to die. On the contrary, these units provide the support to maintain life until health is restored or until a certain level is stabilized. condition, after which the person moves to an intermediate care unit or general hospitalization until he can be discharged from the hospital.

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