laurir (03/07/83)
I asked my father, an internist (M.D.), about "intensive care psychosis". He explained it this way: you've just had a heart attack (or stroke or been badly mauled or undergone some other life-threatening experience). You're hooked up to a variety of machines, in a room where they never completely turn off the lights. At any hour of the day or night a medical person may need to take your blood or run a tube down your throat or otherwise do something most unpleasant. Occasionally you're trundled into an operating room where they fill you with drugs designed to suppress brain activity (knock you out) and slice up various parts of your body. Apparently half of "intensive care psychosis" is the result of disrupted sleep patterns (forget trying for eight hours at night) and the rest is the natural psychic trauma resulting from what you're going through. Sufferers exhibit decreased mental abilities, often appearing to lose contact with reality. The problem almost always goes away as the patient recovers from physical problems. -- Andrew Klossner (decvax!tektronix!tekmdp!laurir)