Prevention of secondary cerebral injury of systemic origin : physiological concepts and nursing practice

Abstract

The instability of the brain-damaged patient in the acute phase implies a high degree of reactivity: the nurse, at the patient’s bedside, must notify the medical team as quickly as possible to guarantee the least negative prognosis. Indeed, the appearance of secondary ischemic cerebral lesions following a primary lesion leaves only a few minutes to act with as a limiting factor, the efficiency of management in a complex clinic. In this context, the guideline for medical reasoning will be the preservation of cerebral blood flow (CBF), which will be closely monitored through multimodal monitoring. This review focuses on the role of the nurse in the management of brain-damaged subject.