| Popis: |
Patients in the intensive care unit often need to be sedated for several reasons: to apply artificial ventilation, to treat convulsions or to control agitation or anxiety [1–4]. The goal of sedation is the reduction of perception and pain. In the most frequent application of sedative drugs, namely in patients on a respirator, the attitudes have changed over the last 15 years. Initially, complete sedation, mostly combined with relaxation, was thought necessary to apply completely controlled ventilation; analgesics were usually added. More recently, after a short period of controlled ventilation cooperation of the patient has been preferred; consequently, sedation changed from complete to partial sedation, combined with analgesia but without relaxation in most cases [5]. Instead of long-acting drugs, such as diazepam [6–8] sedatives with a shorter half-life are now preferred. Besides new therapeutic regimens, the interest of intensivists for monitoring and individualization of sedation has also increased. |
