ICU & Critical Care
Critical care is medical care for people who have life-threatening injuries and illnesses. It usually takes place in an intensive care unit (ICU). A team of specially-trained health care providers gives you 24-hour care. This includes using machines to constantly monitor your vital signs. It also usually involves giving you specialized treatments.
What happens in a critical care unit?
In a critical care unit, health care providers use lots of different equipment, including:
- Catheters, flexible tubes used to get fluids into the body or to drain fluids from the body
- Dialysis machines ("artificial kidneys") for people with kidney failure
- Feeding tubes, which give you nutritional support
- Intravenous (IV) tubes to give you fluids and medicines
- Machines which check your vital signs and display them on monitors
- Oxygen therapy to give you extra oxygen to breathe in
- Tracheostomy tubes, which are breathing tubes. The tube is placed in a surgically made hole that goes through the front of the neck and into the windpipe.
- Ventilators (breathing machines), which move air in and out of your lungs. This is for people who have respiratory failure.