Brian Peach

Patients with ASD can be easily overstimulated by the critical care environment, which includes unusual visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile stimuli. Sounds, for example, may include those heard at home such as conversations, televisions, and toilets, but also medical equipment such as intravenous pumps, ventilators, bed alarms, unfamiliar voices, and intercom pages.

Urosepsis is defined as sepsis in which the urinary tract is the known or the strongly suspected source of infection. Approximately 25% of all adult sepsis cases are urosepsis, and urinary tract infection has been identified as the source in approximately 10% to 30% of all severe sepsis or septic shock cases (Wagenlehner, Weidner, & Naber, 2007). Mortality rates for patients with urosepsis range from 25% to 60% (Ackermann & Monroe, 1996; Meyers et al., 1989; Rosser, Bare, & Meredith, 1999).