Abstract
Analgesia and sedation are basic parts of the treatment in the intensive care. Nevertheless, deep sedation during mechanical ventilation has many adverse effects.
In last decades the trend towards mild titrated sedation is seen. It enables early weaning from mechanical ventilation and shortening the stay in the intensive care setting and hospital.
In this article pharmacology of main drugs used for analgesia/sedation nad strategy of sedation in mechanically ventilated patients are described. The last section of this article is dedicated to sedation of patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome of „common“ and COVID -19 etiology.
These patients usually suffer from critical respiratory failure and agressive ventilatory support, prone positioning and other invasive techniques are needed. That is why deep sedation or even paralysis is sometimes necessary, but also in these patients lower sedation and weaning attempts should be tried as soon as possible.