What is an ICU (intensive care unit)?
People may need admission to a hospital Intensive Care Unit (ICU) after a major accident, or due to a sudden and critical deterioration in health, or have a planned admission following surgery.
Some common reasons include:
- a serious accident – such as a road accident, a severe head injury, a serious fall or severe burns
- a serious short-term condition – such as a heart attack or stroke
- a serious infection – such as sepsis or severe pneumonia
- major surgery – this can either be either an emergency or a planned one.
ICU teams are made up of highly skilled intensive care nurses, doctors – including consultants, who are supported by registrars and junior doctors – and other specialists; all trained in providing critical care for patients with a variety of medical, surgical and trauma conditions. There are high levels of staff to patients, with one nurse per patient usually.
What to expect in ICU
Most ICUs are fairly large sterile areas with a high concentration of specialised, technical and monitoring equipment needed to care for critically ill patients.
Someone in an ICU will often be on painkilling medicine and medicine that makes them drowsy (sedatives). This is because some of the equipment used can be uncomfortable.
When you visit someone you care about in ICU it can be an uncomfortable experience – you may feel helpless, overwhelmed, frustrated and sad. Your feelings and apprehension are understood by the staff that provide support for the people you care about.
ICU equipment
In ICU, you will see many patients connected to a heart monitor, others will on ventilators (breathing machines), be on dialysis machines and receiving a variety of intravenous infusions via tubes and drips.
Be prepared to see lots of lines, tubes, wires and monitoring equipment. Almost all ICU equipment use alarms to let staff know about a change in a patient’s condition. This can make them noisy. Not all equipment alarms signal an emergency situation.
The ICU environment can be frightening for some patients and visitors who may find the activity, sounds, machines, tubes and monitors intimidating.
‘Levels’ of ICU
There are three levels of ICU, which are described below. Different levels are available in different hospitals, largely based on size of that hospital. Hence it may be necessary to transfer a patient to a higher level, if they are unwell.
- Primary (Level One) ICU – can provide oxygen, non-invasive monitoring, and more intensive nursing care than on a ward.
- Secondary (Level Two) ICU – can provide invasive monitoring and life support such as ‘CPAP’.
- Tertiary (Level Three) ICU – can provide a a full spectrum of monitoring and life support technologies – such as ventilation (a breathing machine) and kidney dialysis (for kidney failure) – and can also serve as a regional service for the critically ill.
Outlook
Sadly about 30% of patients do not leave an ICU. But 70% do and most patients stay about a week on an ICU. They are then transferred to other less intensive wards to start the journey home. It may take several months to fully recover though.
Summary
We have described what is an ICU (intensive care unit). We hope it has been helpful.
[NB. Confusingly, ICUs are also called ITUs and critical care units.]
