Pediatric Neuro-ICU Project

[Layna22]

Hi all!

Our hospital has recently opened the fourth Pediatric Neuro-ICU in the country. I was wondering two things:

Do any of you work in a Pediatric Neuro-ICU?

and

I am trying to come up with a topic/idea/project for our floor (it is something the RNs have to do to gain points for evaluations) focusing on either staff education, self-education or patient policy change. Have any of you had a project or idea on your neuro floor that you think would be pertinent to peds as well?

Any suggestions would be fabulous!

Thanks!

[imaginations]

I don't work in paeds neuro ICU but I worked in paeds neuro/neuro surg for a while and my current PICU gets a lot of neuro kids.

How long will patient's be staying in your unit? I guess one thing that we find in our experience with neuro kids is that the ones that get really, really sick are the ones that spend a long time on the unit, have the most deficits and require the most rehabilitation. & we all know that an ICU environment, particularly if you work in an open plan unit, is not really conducive to things that anxiety management, day/night regulation etc. A lot of our long term neuro kids (who've gone from critical to ventilator dependent to trache/vent and a long rehab) have experienced night terrors, hallucinations, day/night confusion and general unhappiness.

There's a lot of evidence in the adult ICU world about the relationship between even short ICU stays and post traumatic stress disorders.

Maybe you could look at anxiety management in neuro kids?