This issue of Critical Care Nurse highlights a number of clinical practice areas related to monitoring and managing patients with potentially lethal neurologic dysfunctions. Owing to clinical priority and necessity, a substantial amount of nursing care for these patients is directed at closely appraising trends in data from a relatively small number of critical neurological parameters in order to recognize and manage acute, short-term situations that could escalate into more problematic and irreversible complications. Once these life-threatening scenarios have abated, however, we are better able to expand our clinical assessments to encompass risk factors for more long-term neurologic health.

A number of studies recently presented at the 9th International Conference on Alzheimer Disease and Related Disorders suggest that the risks of developing dementia in advanced age may be ameliorated by some pretty straightforward management of familiar risk factors. When critical care nurses assess for these indices and include them in...

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