Neurocritical Care Recovery Clinics: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Purposes were to identify evidence for post-intensive care syndrome (PICS) and post-intensive care syndrome-family (PICS-F), defined as the psychological impact on families from exposure to critical care, in the neurologically injured population and to characterize existing models for neurorecovery clinics and the evidence to support their use.

There has been an explosion of post-ICU clinics among the general critical care population, with their use largely justified based on the management of PICS and PICS-F, terminology which excludes brain injured patients. In contrast, neurocritical care recovery clinics are not common and not well-described. There is however evidence in the neuro-ICU population supporting the provision of "dyadic" care, whereby the patient and caregiver are treated as one unit. Brain injured populations likely experience many of the same PICS phenomena as medically ill patients but are not represented in this body of literature. These patients deserve the same level of follow-up as other patients who have experienced critical illness. We propose a neuro-ICU transitional care clinic that addresses PICS-like symptoms and is modeled after transitional care provided to other brain injured populations. Future investigations should be targeted toward understanding the sequalae of a neuro-ICU admission, mechanisms for providing dyadic care, and the impact of neurorecovery clinics on long-term outcomes.