Clinical Study Can Fluctuations in Vital Signs Be Used for Pain Assessment in Critically Ill Patients with a Traumatic Brain Injury?

Copyright © 2014 Caroline Arbour et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. Many critically ill patients with a traumatic brain injury (TBI) are unable to communicate. While observation of behaviors is recommended for pain assessment in nonverbal populations, they are undetectable in TBI patients who are under the effects of neuroblocking agents.Aim.This study aimed to validate the use of vital signs for pain detection in critically ill TBI patients. Methods. Using a repeated measure within subject design, participants