Essential Guide to Acute Care

What you really need to know, but no-one told you.

The best-selling Essential Guide to Acute Care contains everything you need to know about acute care that you can’t find in a standard textbook. The third edition has been extensively revised and updated, presenting new oxygen guidelines, updated evidence and practice around sepsis, fluid balance and volume resuscitation, acute kidney injury, perioperative care, and much more.

The third edition retains the accessible style and comprehensive coverage that has made Essential Guide to Acute Care essential reading for those who look after acutely ill adults. Throughout the book, ‘mini-tutorials’ expand on the latest thinking or controversies, and there are practical case histories to reinforce learning at the end of each chapter. The chapters are designed to be read by individuals or used for teaching material in tutorials.

This new edition of Essential Guide to Acute Care:

    Provides up-to-date and practical guidance on the principles of acute care, written by experienced teachers and clinicians
    Offers a unique approach to the subject that focuses on understanding rather than lists and ‘recipes’
    Explains the altered physiology that accompanies acute illness in adults
    Includes learning objectives, self-assessment questions, and illustrative examples related to clinical practice

Essential Guide to Acute Care is an indispensable volume for medical students and newly graduated doctors; doctors training in medicine, surgery, anaesthesia and emergency medicine; advanced clinical practitioners; nurses and allied health professionals working in acute and critical care; and teachers.

contents

Reviews of the Second Edition vii

Introduction ix

Acknowledgements xi

Foreword to the Second Edition xiii

Units Used in This Book xv

List of Abbreviations xvii

1 Patients at Risk 1

2 Oxygen Therapy 13

3 Acid–Base Balance 35

4 Respiratory Failure 49

5 Fluid Balance and Volume Resuscitation 77

6 Sepsis 101

7 Acute Kidney Injury 129

8 Brain Injury 149

9 Optimising Patients Before Surgery 167

10 Pain Control and Sedation 193

Index 205

NICOLA COOPER, Consultant Physician and Clinical Associate Professor in Medical Education, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust, UK.

PAUL CRAMP, Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care (retired), Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, UK.

KIRSTY FORREST, Dean of Medicine and Consultant Anaesthetist, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University, Australia.

RAKESH PATEL, Clinical Associate Professor and Honorary Consultant Nephrologist, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Nottingham University, UK.