Heart Failure and the Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD)

Mental Status
  • Mental status changes indicate impending respiratory failure
  • Feeling of impending doom
    • Believe a patient who tells you "I feel like I'm going to die"
    • Make the hospital prove otherwise
  • Consider alternate causes for Altered Mental Status as well
    • Alcohol, Epilepsy, Insulin, Overdose, Underdose, Trauma, Infection, Psychosis, Stroke
    • Think "Vanna White from Wheel of Fortune" and you want to buy a vowel "AEIOU-TIPS"