Surjya Prasad Upadhyay, Piyush Narayan Mallick, Waleed Mohamed Elmatite, Manish Jagia, Salah TaqiIndian Journal of Palliative Care 2011 17(3):251-254Many patients are admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) for acute intoxication, serious complication of overdose, or withdrawal symptoms of illicit drugs. An acute withdrawal of drugs with addiction potential is associated with a sympathetic overactivity leading to marked psychomimetic disturbances. Acute intoxication or withdrawal of such drugs is often associated with life-threatening complications which require ICU admission and necessitate prolonged sedative analgesic medications, weaning from which is often complicated by withdrawal and other psychomimetic symptoms. Dexmedetomidine, an alpha-2 (α2 ) agonist, has been used ...

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