Critical Care Nursing of Older Adults

2010 AJN Book of the Year Award Winner in Critical Care--Emergency Nursing!

Designated a Doody's Core Title!

"This evidence-based book is an excellent reference for ensuring high-quality management of the elderly and of their particular needs in the critical care setting."

--AJN

"[This] book's contents run the gamut of elder problems and care: physiology, pharmacology, nutrition, restraints, substance abuse....it is a compendium that can be used as a text or a resource."

--Claire M. Fagin, PhD, RN, FAAN (From the Foreword)

This book is an evidence-based, best-practices guide that directs the bedside care of critically ill elders. The book serves as a reference on major clinical issues for nurses working at the forefront of care-from nurses in critical care and step-down units to those in trauma and emergency departments. Nurse educators at all degree levels will also find this book to be useful as a textbook and resource for students.

The authors provide evidence-based, practical guidelines for both the complex clinical and management aspects of care. The book offers comprehensive coverage of all the issues caregivers need to be up to date on, including the standards of practice for geriatric care, new technologies, pharmacotherapy, pain management issues, ethical issues, and much more.

Key topics discussed:

• Strategies for patient safety for older patients in the intensive care setting
• Family responses to critical care of the older adult
• Infection, sepsis, and immune function
• Understanding and managing sleep disorders in older patients in the ICU
• Heart failure in the critically ill older patient
• Substance abuse and withdrawal in elderly patients

Part I: The context for critical care nursing of older adults
Chapter 1: Introduction and overview
Chapter 2: Standards of Practice for Gerontological and Critical Care Nursing
Chapter 3: The Critical Care Environment
Chapter 4: Patient Safety for Older Patients in the Intensive Care Setting

Part II: Social aspects of critical care nursing of older adults
Chapter 5: Ethical Decision Making
Chapter 6: Continuity of Care
Chapter 7: Family Responses to Critical Care of the Older Adult
Chapter 8: End-of-life care and decisions about life-sustaining treatments
Chapter 9: Becoming Frail
Chapter 10: The Chronically Critically Ill
Chapter 11: Function of Older Adults In Acute Care: Optimizing on an Opportunity

Part III: Foundations for clinical care of critically ill older adults
Chapter 12: Physiology of Aging: Impact on Critical Illness and Treatment
Chapter 13: Pharmacotherapy
Chapter 14: Nutrition and Hydration
Chapter 15: Physical Restraints in Critical Care: Practice Issues and Future Directions
Chapter 16: Infection, Sepsis and Immune Function
Chapter 17: Understanding and Managing Sleep Disorders in Older Adults Patients in the Intensive Care Unit
Chapter 18: Pain in the Critically Ill Older Adult

Part IV: Approaches to complex clinical issues is critically ill older adults
Chapter 19: Pressure Ulcer Prevention and Management
Chapter 20: Wound Healing in the Elderly
Chapter 21: Substance Abuse & Withdrawal
Chapter 22: Urinary Incontinence in Critically Ill Older Adults
Chapter 23: Heart Failure in the Critically Ill Older Patient
Chapter 24: Perioperative Care
Chapter 25: Acute Respiratory Failure and Mechanical Ventilation in the Elderly
Chapter 26: Delirium in Critical Illness
Index"