Post-Intensive Care Syndrome - An Opportunity For Collaborative Transition Between the Intensive and Primary Settings

Critical care advancements have allowed clinicians to discover the many functional disabilities that survivors suffer. Recent research has focused on improving the long-term outcomes of critical illness survivors and optimizing their functional recovery. Post-intensive care syndrome (PICS) describes the disability that remains in those surviving critical illness following discharge from the intensive care unit (ICU). This comprises impairment in cognition, neuropsychiatric health, and physical function of the ICU survivor. Consequent to this, the health of family members of the survivor may also be affected adversely, termed PICS-family. PICS is defined as a new or worsening impairment in physical (ICU-acquired neuromuscular weakness), cognitive (thinking and judgment), or mental health status arising after critical illness and persisting beyond discharge from the acute care setting.