Surviving critical illness is not always the happy ending we imagine for patients. Many ICU survivors suffer from a range of long-lasting physical and psychological issues such end stage renal disease, congestive heart failure, cognitive impairment, neuromuscular weakness, and depression or anxiety, which affect their overall quality of life and ability to lead productive lives. This lingering burden or 'legacy' of critical illness is now recognized as a major publichealth issue, with major efforts underway to understand how it can be prevented, mitigated, or treated. The Textbook of Post-ICU Medicine: The Legacy of Critical Care discusses the science of the recovery process and the innovative treatment regimens which are helping ICU survivors regain functionas they heal following trauma or disease.Describing the major clinical syndromes affecting ICU survivors, the book delineates established or postulated biological mechanisms of the post-acute recovery process, and discusses strategies for treatment and rehabilitation to promote recovery in the ICU and in the long term.The chapters are written by an interdisciplinary panel of leading clinicians and researchers working in the field. The book serves as a unique reference for general practitioners, internists and nurses caring for long term ICU survivors as well as specialists in intensive care medicine, neurology, psychiatry, and rehabilitation medicine.

1 Margaret Herridge: Life After the ICU; 2 Neill KJ Adhikari: Critical Illness and Long-Term Outcomes Worldwide; 3 Matthew Baldwin and Hannah Wunsch: Mortality After Critical Illness; 4 Jeremy M Kahn: The Role of Long-Term Ventilator Hospitals; 5 Aluko A Hope and Judith E Nelson: The Overlap of Palliative Care and Critical Illness; 6 Nishant K Sekaran and Theodore J Iwashyna: Patterns of Recovery After Critical Illness; 7 Jose GM Hofhuis and Peter E Spronk: Quality of Life After Critical Illness; 8 Christopher E Cox: Costs and Resource Utilization in Prolonged Critical Illness; 9 Christopher T Erb and Mark D Siegel: Caring for the ICU survivor: The Family Caregiver Burden; 10 Cheryl Misak: Survival and Recovery: A Patient's Perspective; 11 David Dyzenhaus: One Family's Perspective on the Legacy of Critical Illness; 12 Greet Hermans: Chronic Organ Dysfunction Following Critical Illness; 13 Kevin M Fischer and Shannon S Carson: Chronic Multiple Organ Dysfunction; 14 Gaetan Beduneau, Jean-Christophe M Richard, and Laurent Brochard: Prolonged Respiratory Insufficiency and Ventilator Dependence in the ICU; 15 Ron Wald and Ziv Harel: The Long-Term Outcomes of Acute Kidney Injury; 16 Eva C Diaz, Celeste C Finnerty, and David N Herndon: Severe Burn Injuries and Their Long-Term Implications; 17 Bernd Schonhofer and Stefan Kluge: Consequences of Endotracheal Intubation and Tracheostomy; 18 E Wesley Ely: Cognitive and Behavioural Disorders Following Critical Illness; 19 Ramona O Hopkins and James C Jackson: Cognitive Impairment Following Critical Illness; 20 O Joseph Bienvenu: Depressive Mood States Following Critical Illness; 21 Christina Jones and Richard D Griffiths: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Following Critical Illness; 22 Scott Hoff and Nancy A Collop: Sleep Disorders and Recovery from Critical Illness; 23 Naeem Ali: Neuromuscular and Musculoskeletal Disorders Following Critical Illness; 24 Nicola Latronico, Simone Piva, and Victoria McCredie: Long-Term Implications of ICU-Acquired Muscle Weakness; 25 Amelia Barry and Guy Trudel: Bone and Joint Disease Following Critical Illness; 26 Robert D Stevens: Biological Mechanisms of Injury and Repair; 27 Sachin Yende and Derek C Angus: Genetic Determinants of Sepsis Outcomes; 28 Robert C McDermid