福田 友秀

Intensive care unit patients often experience memory disturbances, including missing or delusional memories. These memory distortions can contribute to the development of psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety and depression. In addition, distorted memories may adversely affect long-term quality of life. However, the association between distorted memories, psychiatric symptoms, and quality of life remains to be fully elucidated in intensive care unit patients. Accordingly, this study explored the relationship between memory distortion, psychiatric symptoms, and long-term quality of life in intensive care unit patients following scheduled surgery. Among 24 patients, 13 experienced memory distortions 12 months post–intensive care unit discharge. These patients exhibited significantly higher anxiety and depression symptoms 1 month after discharge. In addition, over 25% of patients reported low mental quality of life, and over 50% had low physical quality of life 1 year later. These findings suggest that memory distortions can negatively impact both mental and physical recovery, underscoring the need for interventions to preserve factual memory and enhance patient autonomy post–intensive care unit.

AIM: To determine cues to identify intensive care unit patients with distorted memories and related practices. DESIGN: Qualitative descriptive study. METHODS: Twenty nurses were included in semi-structured focus groups. Qualitative content analysis was conducted. RESULTS: Cues and nursing practices related to distorted memories emerged under the following categories: "Get to know daily life before admission," "Facial expressions and behaviour are different from usual," "Pay close attention to the treatment outcome," "Notice it after the fact," "Sharing patients' intensive care unit experiences" and "Creates a new life." Nurses tried to detect distorted memories by observing the patients' facial expressions, medication effects and delirium presence during their normal lives and treatments, while trying to understand the patients' intensive care unit experiences and provide care that promotes autonomous living. This study emphasizes the importance of support for reconstructing ordinary life through communication and rehabilitation, in addition to support for medical care for distorted memories.