María Ángeles Rosero Arenas

By Miguel Ángel García García, María de los Ángeles Rosero Arenas, Alfonso Martínez Cornejo, Marta Bertolo Domínguez and Vicente Miranda Gozalvo

Cardiomyopathies are heart diseases involving high risk of heart failure and sudden cardiac death. In this chapter, we review the use of electrical devices (cardiac resynchronization therapy and implantable cardioverter defibrillator) to reduce the progression of heart failure and prevent arrhythmogenic sudden death in patients affected with these pathologies. The future of these therapies is a more appropriate indication for primary prevention of sudden death (defibrillator) and treatment of heart failure in a broader spectrum of patients (resynchronization).

Part of the book: Cardiomyopathies

By Miguel Ángel García García, María Ángeles Rosero Arenas and Alfonso Martínez Cornejo

Intensive care unit is a special medial environment for many reasons (the severity of the patients, the important technological advances). In recent years, the medicine has changed to a more focused practice on the patient, leaving behind the paternalistic medical approach, with a transparent new relationship with the patient and his family. The ethical principles-autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice-and the possibility of conflicts between them make decision-making very complex. The admission of these patients in our unit is justified based on a triangle-acute, severe, and recoverable disease-trying to optimize their treatment. Unfavorable later evolution is possible; a palliative management can often be considered, changing the patient’s approach from the cure of his illness to the relief of his symptoms. Decisions about patient’s future must be jointly made by the health care team, the patient and his family. We must look for documents about previous instructions and/or opinion of a substitute decision-maker. We must humanize our units, thinking about the best care for the sick person and his family, and improve the support to the family after his death. Therefore, the development of practice guidelines on palliative care should be promoted by the hospitals.

Part of the book: Reflections on Bioethics

By Miguel Ángel García García, Alfonso Martínez Cornejo, David Arizo León and María Ángeles Rosero Arenas

Current medicine, highly technified, and capable of amazing achievements, is not possible without the support of antibiotics. The problem of antibiotic resistance is almost as old as the antibiotics themselves. But at present, it is a serious threat to public health. We have to fight against antibiotic resistance in the hospital and in the out-of-hospital environment. The Resistance Zero program, promoted by the Spanish Society of Intensive Medicine, has achieved through a multidisciplinary approach with collaboration between doctors, nurses, cleaning staff and microbiologists, to control the colonization and infection by multiresistant germs in the environment of the Intensive Care Unit.

Part of the book: Current Topics in Intensive Care Medicine