Bakgrund: Sjukdom och ohälsa kan orsaka påfrestningar och innebära en omställning för hela familjen, detta blir tydligt då en familjemedlem genomgår återupplivningsförsök. Antalet närstående som önskar närvara vid återupplivningsförsök har ökat, det är därför av stor vikt att möta familjers behov vid återupplivningsförsöket. Samtidigt upplever sjuksköterskor att de inte har kompetens nog eller adekvat utbildning för att göra det. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att beskriva upplevelser av närståendes närvaro vid återupplivningsförsök ur dels sjukvårdspersonals och dels närståendes perspektiv. Metod: En litteraturstudie gjordes på 15 vetenskapliga studier med kvalitativ, kvantitativ och mixad ansats. Resultat: I resultatet framkom att närstående och vårdpersonal upplevde att möjligheten att närvara gav tillfälle att ta farväl på ett värdigt sätt. Vårdpersonal kände sig ansvariga för både patient och familj, men vården av familjen var lägre prioriterat än vården av patienten i den akuta situationen. Både vårdpersonal och närstående upplevde att närstående var delaktiga i vården av patienten genom att ha rollen som informatör, att stötta och trösta patienten, eller att medverka vid beslutsfattning. Närståendes närvaro distraherar vårdpersonalen på olika sätt. I de studier som presenterade negativa upplevelser framgick dels att det saknades riktlinjer och dels att personalen var underbemannade. Slutsats: Det finns många faktorer som påverkar både vårdpersonals och närståendes upplevelser av närståendes närvaro vid återupplivningsförsök, bland annat vårdpersonalens erfarenhet och kompetens. Närstående bör få möjligheten att närvara om resurserna tillåter det. Klinisk relevans: Ökad förståelse för vilka faktorer som styr omhändertagandet av närstående i den akuta situationen, kan göra sjuksköterskan bättre förberedd inför dessa situationer. / Background: Disease and illness can cause stress and lead to a change for the whole family; this becomes evident when a family member is undergoing resuscitation attempts. The number of relatives who wish to be present during resuscitation has increased; it is therefore important to meet the needs of families during resuscitation. At the same time nurses experience that they are not competent enough or have adequate training to do so. Objective: The aim of this study is to describe the experiences of family presence during resuscitation from both health professionals and also relatives’ perspective. Method: A literature review was done on 15 scientific articles with qualitative, quantitative and mixed approach. Results: The results revealed that relatives and healthcare professionals felt that the opportunity to attend provided the opportunity to say goodbye in a dignified manner. Healthcare professionals felt responsible for both patient and family, but the care of the family had lower priority than the care of the patient in the acute situation. Both healthcare professionals and relatives’ experiences showed that relatives were involved in the care of the patient by having the role as an informant, to support and comfort the patient, or to participate in decision making. Family presence distracts medical staff in various ways. In the studies that presented negative experiences it appeared partly because of lack of guidelines and the fact that the healthcare professionals were understaffed. Conclusion: There are many variables that influence both health professionals and relatives experiences of family presence during resuscitation, including health professionals' experience and expertise. Relatives should have the opportunity to attend if resources allow. Clinical relevance: Increased understanding of the variables that determine the care of relatives in the acute situation, can prepare the nurse for these situations.

Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) following hemorrhagic shock/resuscitation (S/R) is an important contributor to late morbidity and mortality in trauma patients. S/R promotes ARDS by inducing oxidative stress that primes cells of the innate immune system for excessive responsiveness to small inflammatory stimuli, termed the “twohit” hypothesis. Activated alveolar macrophages (AM) play a central role and when recovered from S/R animals exhibit an exaggerated responsiveness to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) with increased activation of the proinflammatory transcription factor NF-κB, and augmented expression of cytokines. LPS triggers AM signalling through Toll like receptor 4 (TLR4), which resides in plasma membrane lipid rafts. The objective of this work is to define cellular mechanisms of macrophage priming by oxidative stress following shock resuscitation. The main hypothesis investigated is that altered cellular distribution of TLR4 can lead to macrophage priming and antioxidant resuscitation strategies can diminish these effects. AM of rodents, exposed in vivo to oxidant stress following S/R, increase their surface levels of TLR4, which in turn results in augmented NF-κB translocation in response to small doses of LPS. Furthermore, in vitro H2O2 treatment of RAW 264.7 macrophages results in similar TLR4 surface translocation. Depletion of intracellular calcium, disruption of the cytoskeleton or inhibition of the Src kinases prevents the H2O2-induced TLR4 translocation, suggesting the involvement of receptor exocytosis. Further, fluorescent resonance energy iii transfer between TLR4 and lipid rafts as well as biochemical raft analysis demonstrated that oxidative stress redistributes TLR4 to surface lipid rafts. Preventing the oxidant-induced movement of TLR4 to lipid rafts using methyl-ß-cyclodextrin precluded the increased responsiveness of cells to LPS after H2O2 treatment. Further, AM priming by oxidative stress can be diminished by early exposure to resuscitation regimens with direct or indirect systemic antioxidant effects, such as 25% albumin, N-acetylcysteine and hypertonic saline. Hyperosmolarity was found to modulate AM TLR4 gene and protein expression. Collectively, these studies suggest a novel mechanism whereby oxidative stress might prime the responsiveness of cells of the innate immune system. Targeting the TLR4 signalling pathway early during shock resuscitation may represent an anti-inflammatory strategy able to ameliorate late morbidity and mortality following S/R.

Resuscitation from haemorrhagic shock and the subsequent circulatory arrest remains a major clinical challenge in the care of trauma patients. Numerous experimental studies in sexually mature animals have shown a gender dimorphism in response to trauma and haemorrhagic shock. The first study was designed to evaluate sex differences in outcome after resuscitation from hypovolemic circulatory arrest. We intended to examine innate sex differences, and chose to study sexually immature animals. The study showed that cerebral cortical blood flow was greater, blood-brain-barrier was better preserved and neuronal injury was smaller in female as compared to male piglets. The second study demonstrated that female sex was associated with enhanced haemodynamic response, cardioprotection, and better survival. This cardioprotective effect was observed despite comparable estradiol and testosterone levels in male and female animals, indicating an innate gender-related cardioprotection. In both studies (I and II) female sex was associated with a smaller increase in the cerebral expression of inducible and neuronal nitric oxide synthase (iNOS and nNOS). Thus in the study III we tested the hypothesis that exogenously administered 17β-estradiol (E2) could improve neurological outcome by NOS modulation. The results showed that compared with the control group, animals in the E2 group exhibited a significantly smaller increase in nNOS and iNOS expression, a smaller blood-brain-barrier disruption and a mitigated neuronal injury. There was also a significant correlation between nNOS and iNOS levels and neuronal injury. A hypothesis if female-specific cardioprotection may be attributed to a smaller NOS activity was tested in study IV. The animals received methylene blue (MB) during CPR, but were otherwise treated according to the same protocol as studies I-II. The female-specific cardioprotection could be attributed to a smaller NOS activity, but NOS inhibition with MB did not improve survival or myocardial injury, although it abated the difference between the sexes.

Brain death has adverse effects on the organ donor, increasing organ dysfunction and affecting transplantation outcomes. It can also render organs unsuitable for transplantation. Another determinant of organ quality is ischaemia-reperfusion injury, which limits ischaemic storage time for hearts to six hours. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the effectiveness of hormone resuscitation (HR) of the donor to ameliorate the effects of brain death. Another aim was to develop a donor management and organ preservation strategy to ameliorate the effects of ischaemia-reperfusion injury on the heart, thereby extending ischaemic preservation times. A porcine model of the brain-dead multi-organ donor with orthotopic cardiac transplantation was utilised. Donor HR was shown to improve cardiac contractility and haemodynamics, thereby reducing inotrope requirements. A follow-up study investigating the effects of three different donor management protocols demonstrated that donor haemodynamics, renal arterial flow and creatinine clearance were superior in HR animals compared with animals treated with noradrenaline or intravenous fluid alone. Noradrenaline was associated with a significant deterioration in pulmonary function (PaO2 and alveolar-arterial oxygen gradient) and a decline in donor pH. HR was not associated with any detrimental effects on the lungs, liver or pancreas compared with the other two groups. Preservation strategies incorporating glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) and cariporide, a Na+-H+ exchange inhibitor, were investigated to safely extend cardiac ischaemic preservation times. Pre-treatment with intravenous cariporide prior to heart explantation (donor) and reperfusion of the transplanted heart (recipient) was shown to effectively extend ischaemic time to 14 hours, evidenced by weaning off cardiopulmonary bypass. GTN and cariporide-supplemented Celsior, used as a cardioplegic/storage solution, was also effective in extending preservation time to 14 hours, with superior cardiac contractility compared with cariporide pre-treated hearts. Both treatments also ameliorated reperfusion injury, stabilising haemodynamics for up to three hours post-bypass. This thesis has demonstrated the effectiveness of HR to ameliorate the negative effects of donor brain death. It also provides evidence that combined GTN and cariporide-supplemented Celsior improves long-term preservation of the donor heart. These strategies offer the potential to increase the proportion of transplantable organs, to improve donor organ quality, and thereby improve transplantation outcomes.

Advantages and disadvantages of administration of resuscitation fluids in burns patients have been discussed at length. However, the effect of resuscitation fluids on tissue physiological endpoints and tissue antibiotic distribution is scarcely reported, yet clinically crucial. The preliminary studies of this thesis involved evaluation of the literature and the development of a non - recovery anaesthetized rat model of burn injury suitable for the study of plasma and tissue physiological changes and antibiotic pharmacokinetics (PK). Therefore, the first series of the studies for this thesis was designed to examine the relative effects of a range of crystalloid and colloid-containing resuscitation fluids on tissue pH following burn injury in a rat model. The secondary aims were to examine the effects of these fluids on tissue blood flow, plasma protein extravasation (PPE) and evaporative water loss (EWL). In these studies we confirmed that the burn injury and fluid resuscitation were accompanied by a tissue acidosis. Administration of Lactated Ringers’ Albumin (LRA) and Lactated Ringers’ Dextran (LRD) effectively attenuated the degree of tissue acidosis in the thermally injured and non injured sites for 180 minutes post burn and the transepidermal water loss (TEWL) on the non injured sites during the first 60 minutes of the acute phase of burn injury. The second phase of the work was designed to assess the changes in antibiotic distribution with the administration of these different fluids in plasma as well as in interstitial tissues in the burn and the non burn sites. This study showed that for cephalothin (4g/kg body weight, administered intravenously (IV)), Lactated Ringers solution (LR) and Hypertonic Saline (HS) showed similar plasma PK with Time > Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) (> 180 minutes) in plasma. However, the antibiotic tissue distribution was more skewed towards lower levels for HS when compared with LR. For piperacillin (18g/kg body weight, administered IV), Time > MIC was considerably low comparatively, being only 55 min for both LR and HS. Antibiotic concentrations did not reach the MIC with LRA resuscitation. When considering the interstitial tissues, Time > MIC for cephalothin was lower than HS with LR on both the burn and the non burn sites. T > MIC for piperacillin was zero for all fluids in both burn and non burn sites. The major finding of this study was that with LRA resuscitation, antibiotic distribution was significantly lower than seen with LR and HS for both antibiotics studied in the interstitial tissue fluid space in both the burn and non burn sites. The final phase of the work was designed to study the apparent permeability co efficient of Keratinocytes (KC) to antibiotics in the presence of simulated pH changes observed in burn tissue in thermal injury using colloids and crystalloids. This study found that there was no significant difference between the basolateral and apical concentrations of antibiotics observed neither with the different pH values nor with time. However, there was definitely a significant difference in the apparent permeability of the cells with LR vs LRA and that the permeability was higher with LR than LRA. This study confirmed that the presence of LR allows greater permeation of the antibiotic into the KC, and also that with LRA resuscitation, the antibiotic tends to stay at higher concentrations in the interstitial compartment. These studies demonstrate that choice of resuscitation fluid following burn injury can affect both changes in tissue physiology and antibiotic distribution, warranting further study in both animal models and patient populations.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karol. inst., 2006. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, 2006. / Typescript (photocopy).

This thesis mapped the view of the DNR issue through the eyes of nurses working at the resuscitation department and ICU. A DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order indicates situations when starting immediate resuscitation is not indicated in respiratory or cardiac arrest. DNR is ordered by a doctor after evaluation of the overall clinic condition and further prognoses of a patient. A patient him/herself has the right to decide on not starting resuscitation in the form of a request expressed in advance. The main task of the nurse continues to care for the patient and her/his family. Qualitative research showed thad nursing care remains unchanged even in a patient with DNR order. Nurses see DNR first of all as termination of patient suffering and consider DNR definitely acceptable in old and terminally ill people. Non resuscitation of a young person or a child is unacceptable for them. They consider the decision making itself an ethical problem. There is vain and inefficient treatment burdening a person on one side and person?s autonomy and participation in deciding on his/her own fate.