Recovery After Medical or Surgical Treatment - A Prospective Cohort Study

A stay at the ICU (intensive Care Unit) is related to life-threatening conditions and often displays a major impact on both physical and mental resources of the patients. Studies show that a great part of ICU patients have impairments of both physical and psychological kinds, some long-lasting. This condition is termed the "post intensive care syndrome" (PICS) and describes a wide range of symptoms as fatigue, depression, anxiety, memory loss along with both cognitive and physical impairments. Rehabilitative efforts are, thus, needed, and it has been suggested that ideally, rehabilitation should begin at the time of admission to the hospital and continue for a long time, possibly years, after the patient has been discharged. Regarding long term cognitive function of the ICU survivors in particular, recent studies have demonstrated severe impairment at the level of light Alzheimer's disease. In all of these studies, the reference group is the normal population, and it is a general problem that the cognitive and physical function of ICU patients before critical illness is unknown. There has recently been a norwegian study that included a reference group of surgical patients undergoing major surgery. The surgical group was older and more severely ill than the ICU group and was found to have a much worse cognitive function. Moreover, the cognitive function of the critically ill patients was not very far from the normal reference population due to selection.

To determine to which degree the impairments can be attributed to ICU-admission, the investigators need to look at a hospitalised and representative, non-ICU population, which is what will be done in the study. The investigators will therefore include patients that have been admitted to surgical or medical department acute without admittance to the ICU and contact these patients 3 and 12 months after admission. Where there will be performed different tests in order to evaluate the the cognitive status, quality of life, physical function and risk of anxiety and depression, sleep disorders and drug use.