Evidence based management of ventilator sedation to improve neurocognitive outcomes

It is well known that survivors of mechanical ventilation experience long term cognitive sequelae. Now there’s evidence, presented at the Society of Critical Care Medicine 38th Critical Care Congress, that protocol driven limitation of ventilator sedation can minimize this complication.

It isn’t entirely clear from the Medscape news piece, but this must be a follow up analysis of the wake-up-and-breathe study which I linked here.

According to one of the investigators:

"The culture of the ICU should change," Dr. Jackson added. "The concept of keeping the patient down should be considered an antiquated concept."