Intensive Care Unit Advantages And Disadvantages

Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is special department in hospital that provide treatment for patient under critical condition such as complications from accidents, infections, and severe breathing problems. Patient may also be transferred to ICU from ward if the patient health increasing deteriorated, from emergency department and also patient who had just undergo surgery.It involves close and constant attention from a team of qualified , well-trained care provider that consist of physician, nurses, respiratory therapist, physical therapist, social worker and pastoral care staff and also provide medications in order to ensure normal bodily function of the patient. Intravenous tubes, feeding tubes, catheters, breathing machines, and other equipment are common in intensive care units. They may help a patient

It is the best for the physician to discuss preferences with patient preemptively while they still can speak for themselves. This is called Advance Directives (Ads). The purpose is to ensure patient wishes and preference respected if they become incapacitated. Unfortunately , few patients have ADs and little evidence show that they aid in decision making process[10]. As consequences, at the end the surrogates decision maker that have to make decision and final say and put them under enormous pressure. Many family members especially spouses, experience depression , anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder[11]. Participation in end-of-life decision may contribute to phychiatric morbidity, but this finding needed further work to confirm[12]. Because patient preference usually unknown, decision making become difficult . Physician and family members also often cannot predict the preference of the patient although some suggested certain factor such as that level of education of surrogate and patient and prior end-of-life discussion may improve accuracy in