Equipment and Systems
Common equipment in an ICU includes mechanical ventilators to assist breathing through an endotracheal tube or a tracheotomy; cardiac monitors including those with telemetry; external pacemakers; defibrillators; dialysis equipment for renal problems; equipment for the constant monitoring of bodily functions; a web of intravenous lines, feeding tubes, nasogastric tubes, suction pumps, drains, and catheters; and a wide array of drugs to treat the primary condition(s) of hospitalization. Medically induced comas, analgesics, and induced sedation are common ICU tools needed and used to reduce pain and prevent secondary infections.
Read more about this topic: Intensive Care Unit
Famous quotes containing the words equipment and/or systems:
“Biological possibility and desire are not the same as biological need. Women have childbearing equipment. For them to choose not to use the equipment is no more blocking what is instinctive than it is for a man who, muscles or no, chooses not to be a weightlifter.”
—Betty Rollin (b. 1936)
“The only people who treasure systems are those whom the whole truth evades, who want to catch it by the tail. A system is just like truth’s tail, but the truth is like a lizard. It will leave the tail in your hand and escape; it knows that it will soon grow another tail.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)