Patient Conditions

Patient Conditions

• The objective of these pages is to provide a a straight forward explanation of common conditions or critical illnesses experienced by patients in an Adult Intensive Care Unit.
• Every attempt has been made to strip these explanations of medical and nursing jargon that can often obscure the meaning from the patient in ICU or the visitor to ICU.
• Each explanation includes a broad description of normal and abnormal function for the body system affected followed by a more detailed description of what happens with a particular condition.
• The page will then go on to describe general treatment options, what occurs in the intensive care unit and how long the patient may remain in intensive care.
• Links to other pages within the ICCMU website are provided to enhance the readers' understanding.
• The pages have been written by the members of the Consumer Webpage Working Party (CWPWP). This is a group of senior nursing and medical intensive care clinicians as well as consumer, legal and allied health representatives.
• Please note that these pages contain general information only and may not reflect an individual patient's condition or experience.

Navigation

• Please use the alphabet links at the top of this page to find the condition of interest or browse the table below.
• Each page has been set up to print as seen on the screen. To print a page go to the 'File' menu at the top of the screen and choose 'Print'.