Lessening the Stress of Intensive Care through Diaries
September 18th, 2010
It’s not just a singular traumatic event such as an explosion or accident that can have psychological impact on a person. Studies show that a difficult hospital stay, especially in an intensive care unit, can cause a person to develop post-traumatic stress disorder. Such stays often involve irregular sleep patterns, drifting in and out of consciousness, extreme pain, and medications that alter perception and awareness. As a result, spending several days in the ICU can be very disorienting. To help patients feel more secure about what was real and what was dreamed, a new program provided them with diaries. Nursing staff and family members wrote daily updates and took pictures whenever something notable changed. The result was a significantly lower rate of trauma-related psychological symptoms in the weeks following discharge.
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Comments
This is such a wonderful and caring idea. Writing is so cathartic and therapeutic for many people, even for people who have never had the chance to try just writing down their feelings before, I think that they are amazed at how good it can make them feel. There is just something about being bale to put pen to paper and get your thoughts and emotions out that encourages people to do it time and again. It is great to be able to talk things out but for me sometimes it feels like once you say what you need to say the words disappear and they are gone. With writing the words now have the baility to stay with you and be revisited and studied. Those are the words that never go away, become a snapshot in time of what you were going through.
There are many health care facilites using this kind of therapy for patients today, giving them the chance to think about and to get out into the open all of their fears and anxieties as well as the good things in life that they find they can now discover too.
when i first read the title of this post,i thought patients in intensive care units were encouraged to maintain diaries.but the fact that events were recorded for them by others is something that i have never heard of before,but sounds like a good idea because i cannot imagine the stress and agony i would go through if i didnt know what was real and what wasnt.it would really freak any person out.
I think that’s a fantastic idea. I was in hospital after a car accident and to this day remember very frightening images that I know had to have been hallucinations. If you’d asked me at the time I wouldn’t have been so sure. When you’re doped up and your mind plays tricks on you, it’s scary how realistic they are. You also hear half conversations and that confuses you more.
I was in a bad motorcycle wreck severalonths agao and had to spend weeks and weeks in ICU. I was out of it alot so did not really know what was going on but having now gotten out of the hospital and talked a lot with my sisters and parents I know how trying that time was for them. Spending all that time on that windowless unit and trying to help me through my own recovery process was very draining fro them. My older sister did a lot of writing during that time and while I have not read a lot of it yet because I am still shaken up about the accident, she said that was such a release for her.
don’t you think this methods actually makes all the forgetful things happening in the hospital something that is captured and something the patient will look at again and again…?I think it only enhances the problem.
Having a point of reference where you could perhaps find the seed of those hallucinations or fragmented images has to be a good thing. It’s amazing this hasn’t been standard practice before really.
I feel sorry for anyone that went through that. It’s horrific enough to be involved in a bad accident. Being disorientated as well would be a nightmare. I like the journal idea, as long as the nurses were on board and don’t perceive this as an impediment to their work.
A diary is like the memoires of a journey and for somebody in an intensive care unit,this has the same use as a cam does for a person who was blind and later gains vision and is able to see all the things that he missed out on when he was blind.
A great idea this sounds.Kudos :)
This idea will work until something unforeseen happens and a patient uses the contents of the diary to sue the hospital. It is after all a legitimate record of their hospital stay.
There is nowhere better to share all of those inner thoughts than your own personal diary. the diary will not judge and call you crazy, and it will not talk you out of something. It gives you a forum to vent without hurting someone else and it is there no matter the time of day.
Nurses have enough to do without asking them to fill in more paperwork. It’s getting where they spend more time on administration and pen pushing than actual patient care.
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