C.C.U กับ I.C.U

CCU ย่อมาจาก cardiac care unit ส่วน ICU ย่อมาจาก intensive care unit 

ทั้งสองจะดูแลผู้ป่วยอาการหนัก แต่ CCU จะเน้นเฉพาะโรคหัวใจ

Definition

An intensive care unit, or ICU, is a specialized section of a hospital that provides comprehensive and continuous care for persons who are critically ill and who can benefit from treatment.

Purpose

The purpose of the intensive care unit (ICU) is simple even though the practice is complex. Healthcare professionals who work in the ICU or rotate through it during their training provide around-the-clock intensive monitoring and treatment of patients seven days a week. Patients are generally admitted to an ICU if they are likely to benefit from the level of care provided. Intensive care has been shown to benefit patients who are severely ill and medically unstable—that is, they have a potentially life-threatening disease or disorder.

Although the criteria for admission to an ICU are somewhat controversial—excluding patients who are either too well or too sick to benefit from intensive care—there are four recommended priorities that intensivists (specialists in critical care medicine) use to decide this question. These priorities include:

• Critically ill patients in a medically unstable state who require an intensive level of care (monitoring and treatment).
• Patients requiring intensive monitoring who may also require emergency interventions.
• Patients who are medically unstable or critically ill and who do not have much chance for recovery due to the severity of their illness or traumatic injury.
• Patients who are generally not eligible for ICU admission because they are not expected to survive. Patients in this fourth category require the approval of the director of the ICU program before admission.

ICU care requires a multidisciplinary team that consists of but is not limited to intensivists (clinicians who specialize in critical illness care); pharmacists and nurses; respiratory care therapists; and other medical consultants from a broad range of specialties including surgery,pediatrics, and anesthesiology. The ideal ICU will have a team representing as many as 31 different health care professionals and practitioners who assist in patient evaluation and treatment. The intensivist will provide treatment management, diagnosis, interventions, and individualized care for each patient recovering from severe illness.

http://www.answers.com/topic/intensive-care-medicine

History

In 1854, Florence Nightingale left for the Crimean War, where the necessity to separate seriously wounded soldiers from less-seriously wounded was observed. Nightingale reduced mortality from 40% to 2% on the battlefield, creating the concept of intensive care

In 1950, anesthesiologist Peter Safar established the concept of "Advanced Support of Life," keeping patients sedated and ventilated in an intensive care environment. Safar is considered the first intensivist.

In response to a polio epidemic (where many patients required constant ventilation and surveillance), Bjørn Ibsen established the first intensive care unit in Copenhagen in 1953.^[1] The first application of this idea in the United States was pioneered by Dr. William Mosenthal, a surgeon at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.^[2] In the 1960s, the importance of cardiac arrhythmias as a source of morbidity and mortality in myocardial infarctions (heart attacks) was recognized. This led to the routine use of cardiac monitoring in ICUs, especially in the post-MI setting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensive-care_unit

Definition

What Is the CCU?

After a heart attack or major cardiac surgery, patients typically are treated in a hospital's cardiac care unit, or CCU, which offers highly specialized care until their condition stabilizes.

The equivalent of an intensive care unit, or ICU, which is for critically ill patients with other types of conditions, a CCU contains extensive heart monitoring and testing equipment as well as a staff trained and certified in heart conditions and procedures and their aftermath.

More than 300,000 Americans undergo coronary bypass surgery each year, whereas another 920,000 suffer a first or subsequent heart attack, and 80 million people overall have some type of cardiovascular disease. Consequently, the CCU -- which is also known as the coronary care unit -- tends to be a busy place. The average stay in a CCU is five days, after which most patients are transferred to a hospital's step-down unit for less intensive care.

After step-down care, patients are usually discharged, often beginning cardiac rehabilitationprograms, which help patients make changes in diet, exercise and other lifestyle factors for at least several months.

What Happens in the CCU?

Like normal ICUs, CCUs are designed to limit stress to patients during the initial, critical phase of their treatment. Visitors are typically restricted to immediate family members, and visiting hours are often limited to two or three short periods of time per day. Food and other items brought from outside the hospital, such as plants and flowers, are usually prohibited as well. Patients in CCUs tend to be on supervised diets, and plants can introduce potential infection-causing bacteria into the environment.

Often, patients are hooked up to wires and tubes during their CCU stays, which can prove disconcerting to family members, but is necessary for close monitoring. All patients are connected to heart monitors, and some patients also require ventilators to assist their breathing. Additionally, a variety of tests are often done during a stay in the CCU, such as blood work or electrocardiograms, which measures the electrical activity of the heart. Many different cardiac medications may be given, including those to treat heart failure or to reduce the workload of the heart.

Stress-inducing noise, however, can be a hard-to-control problem in CCUs. Many medical devices, including heart monitors and respirators, emit periodic beeps and buzzes, and the around-the-clock movement of medical personnel through the unit can make the CCU less restful than intended.

A 2008 Journal of Clinical Nursing study found that CCU noise levels were often far beyond the recommended standard for hospitals and generally ranged from 60 to 70 decibels -- equivalent to the sound of a constantly running vacuum cleaner or highway traffic at close range.

http://heartdisease.about.com/lw/Health-Medicine/Conditions-and-diseases/Cardiac-Care-Unit.htm