A recent article at http://www.medicinenet.com/icu_psychosis/article.htm explains
Environmental Causes (Snipet of Article)
- Sensory deprivation: A patient being put in a room that often has no windows, and is away from family, friends, and all that is familiar and comforting.
- Sleep disturbance and deprivation: The constant disturbance and noise with the hospital staff coming at all hours to check vital signs, give medications, etc.
- Continuous light levels: Continuous disruption of the normal biorhythms with lights on continually (no reference to day or night).
- Stress: Patients in an ICU frequently feel the almost total loss of control over their life.
- Lack of orientation: A patient's loss of time and date.
- Medical monitoring: The continuous monitoring of the patient's vital signs, and the noise generated by monitoring devices can be disturbing and create sensory overload.
Let's hope some forward thinking and proactive hospitals will look to Sonicu to help in this regard. Sonicu can even aide with the lighting by controlling the day cycle of overhead lighting. It's built under the hood of every Sonicu controller. (requires ballast change out)
