Perioperative and Critical Care Medicine Educational Issues

In this book are discussed topics of particular importance to critical care cardiovascular diagnosis and management in the perioperative period. Chapter topics are the causes for heart failure; the pathophysiology of heart failure; coronary heart disease and ischemic preconditioning; hypertensive urgencies and emergencies; diagnosis of heart failure; preoperative cardiac risk assessment; hemodynamic monitoring in patients with heart failure; electrocardiography of heart failure - features and arrhythmias; pharmacologic management for patients with heart failure; devices for management of heart failure; pacemaker and internal cardioverter-defibrillator therapies; management of cardiopulmonary arrest; circulatory shock - anaphylactic, cardiogenic, haemorrhagic, septic; prevention and management of cardiac dysfunction during and after cardiac surgery; vasodilator therapy - systemic and pulmonary; and, thromboembolism and anticoagulation. This work represents an important update for anaesthesiologists, cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, emergency care physicians and intensivists caring for patients with acute, life-threatening cardiovascular afflictions.