ahmad pakdel

Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is one of the major factors of mortality and morbidity in Intensive care units (ICUS), especially in open-heart surgery patients. The purpose of this study was to investigate VAP in open-heart surgery patients admitted to the ICU in Sari Fatemeh Zahra Hospital, 2017-2019.

In this retrospective descriptive cross-sectional study, demographic, clinical, laboratory, and therapeutic information of patients with VAP were examined. Data were analyzed using SPSS V25.

A total of 52 patients with VAP were elevated after open heart surgery. The mean age of patients was 64.41±10.85 years and 55.8% were men. Half of the patients (51.9%) underwent intubation for less than five days and the mean duration of occurrence of VAP after initiation of ventilation was about six hours. The most common microorganisms causing pneumonia were Acinetobacter baumannii (23.63%) and Citrobacter freundii (16.36%). In general, the highest resistance of isolated microorganisms was toward third-generation cephalosporins and their highest sensitivity was to aminoglycosides.

Control and prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia is of particular importance, especially in patients after open-heart surgery admitted to intensive care units.

Backgrounds Physical and cognitive impairment in the elderly interferes in their health. Cognitive impairment, as a common complication in the elderly, attracted the attention of many specialists. The current study aimed at assessing the psychological disorders in the elderly living in nursing homes in Khorramabad, Iran.
Methods & Materials The current descriptive-analytical study employed census method to evaluate 70 residents of Sedigh Nursing Home in Khorramabad, 2014. Data were collected by the standardized Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) to assess cognitive status. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 16, and descriptive and inferential statistics tests (Chi-square).
Results Out of 70 study subjects, 48 (68.6%) were female. The mean age of the subjects was 5.6±4.69 years; ranged 60 to 91 years. Generally, 74.3% of the subjects had different levels of cognitive impairment; (27.1%) mild, (34.3%) moderate, and (22.9%) severe.
Conclusion Based on the high prevalence of cognitive impairment among the study subjects, it is recommended to employ measures such as reducing stress and doing proper exercises and cognitive behavior therapies to manage or postpone cognitive impairments. Also, early diagnosis of cognitive impairment in the elderly is recommended. Future well designed studies on community-dwelling older adults are suggested.