Functional urination disorders in patients recovering in an intensive care unit for more than 30 days

Patients in rest-homes, intensive care units, long hospitalization and dialysis and whoever stays in a hospital continuously or occasionally for long periods of time may run into the well-known and typical complications of prolonged hospitalization. We have studied the urologic aspect in all the cases of the Medical- Surgical Emergency Institute in the Hospital of Ancona (seated in Torrette), over the period 1990-96, in patients hospitalized for at least 30 days. All the patients were followed and studied with the same method, though taking into account their different pathological conditions. They were treated by the same medical and paramedical staff. The same antibiotic therapy and the same checkup were adopted for all of them. We have noticed that out of 122 patients the most frequent pathologies have been urinary infections (19%); while sepsis with different pathogenesis was recorded in 4% of the patients. The method of study applied during and after the hospitalization was used also in rehabilitation centres and included: urologic examination, rectal touch (in men), direct X-ray of the abdomen, ultrasound of the urinary tract, X-ray urography, if required; moreover urodynamic examination, MRI of encephalon and spinal marrow in patients with neurological lesions. The catheter was removed in all the patients and none of the following conditions were observed: vesical lithiasis, abscesses, fistulae in penoscrotal angle, urethrostenosis, injuries to renal emunctory. In conclusion we believe that the functional symptoms of minction--be they of obstructive or irritable nature--are not existent and that the urologic prognosis in long term patients in excellent, provided that prophylaxis is carried on against hospital urinary infections as their occurrence is very frequent and therapy is expensive. It can also be stated the patient hospitalized in ICU will not present damages to the urinary tract, even if he/she has been hospitalized because of injuries to the urinary tract, provided that the urologic tutoring, together with the action of the physician handling the Emergency, follow the rules for asepsis, the best biocompatible materials are use, infections are monitored, the extensions of cerebrospinal injuries are examined and therapeutic axioms, such as barren and clean intermittent catheterism, are finally adopted.