Relieve the Patient's Thirst, Refresh the Mouth First (ICU-MIC)

Centre Hospitalier Arras

Status: Completed

Conditions: Hypernatremia; Dehydration

Treatments: Other: Mint Ice Cube; Procedure: Blood test; Other: Patient's questioning

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03610074

2017-03

Details and patient eligibility

About

Thirst is considered as one of the most distressing symptoms experienced by patients hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Whereas pain is a permanent concern for all caregivers, thirst is often ignored and its complications are poorly known. Mechanisms involved in thirst regulation are numerous and complex. To date, care of thirst is still non optimal. Critically ill patients are usually rehydrated intravenously or using a naso-gastric tube, thus shunting the mouth as a therapeutic target to relieve the patient's thirst.

Water, cold and mint applied in mouth were studied separately and were shown to decrease thirst significantly on animal models and healthy humans.

Therefore, the hypothesis of this study is that application of small mint ice cubes in mouth of very dehydrated ICU patients should allow decreasing quickly and significantly thirst for these patients, before the correction of their biological parameters, like natremia and osmolarity.

Enrollment: 26 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Hypernatremia upper than 150mmol/L or hypernatremia upper than 145mmol/L associated with water deficiency upper than 3L
• Estimated hospitalization duration in ICU upper than 24h

Exclusion criteria

• Contraindication for ice cubes application in mouth
• Known mint allergy
• Incapability to understand study outcome and to answer basic questions
• Pregnancy
• Dying person

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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26 participants in 1 patient group

Mint ice cubes

Experimental group

Description:

Physician applies 3 mint ice cubes in mouth of highly dehydrated patient. Patient undergoes an additional blood test at 5 min from mint ice cubes application. Physician performs patient's questioning before mint ice cubes application and at 5 min, 1h, 2h, 4h, 12h and 24h from mint ice cubes application.

Treatment:

Procedure: Blood test

Other: Patient's questioning

Other: Mint Ice Cube