Coronary Care Unit (CCU) Psychosis Syndrome

Abstract

Intensive Care Unit (ICU) syndrome or psychosis is frequently encountered among ICU patients constituting a significant barrier in the communication between them and their health care providers and posing a risk to their entire treatment plan. It has been reported that the effort required from the nursing staff to deal with patients having this problem is overwhelming more mentally than physically. We are herein briefly describing some aspects of this issue so that we can make it more easily recognizable by the ICU personnel since an early intervention before it reaches its peak is mostly beneficial for our critically ill patients. We use the term organic psychosyndrome reported in the classification of mental illnesses and disease DSM-IV. Of note, the same clinical entity is found in the literature under various terms, such as delirium, syndrome of units, acute situation, and delirium owed to medical general situation.