- Heart Rate Variability in the Intensive Care Unit

Patients with critical illnesses are managed in intensive care units (ICUs), which are specialized hospital areas that provide advanced life support (i.e., ventilatory support, hemodynamic support and kidney support). These patients are by de­nition, unstable and their clinical conditions can change rapidly and, at times, unpredictably. The response to treatment is also very complex due to the speed of physiological change and interactions between multiple treatments and pathological processes. The management of patients in the ICU does not follow strictly de­ned rules, as the physician has to make decisions on incomplete information.