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Intensive care unit syndrome (ICU) is a familiar, complex and problematic complication for patients hospitalised in intensive care units. It can be difficult to diagnose because it can be provoked by many factors and there can be many differential diagnoses. The article is a review of the general state of intensive care unit syndrome over the last 50 years. Developments in the field are gone through and definition, cause, differential diagnoses, symptoms and treatment are discussed. In addition, the results are presented of a small-scale questionnaire survey carried out among Danish intensive care unit nurses in an attempt to expose the current situation regarding ICU. The result shows that the syndrome still exists in Denmark. The article concludes with a run-through of various suggestions as to how the risk of patients developing intensive care unit syndrome can be minimised. The conclusion: intensive care unit syndrome has existed for 50 years and still represents a serious complication for already critically ill patients. As a consequence, intensive care unit nurses must still focus on the condition and optimise their efforts in order to avoid the occurrence of ICU.

MeSH