HALLUCINATIONS caused by sedatives and opiates given to children in intensive care are not just a bad dream. They may cause more stress than real memories.
When Gillian Colville and colleagues at St George’s Hospital in London in the intensive care unit (ICU) at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, they found that nearly a third suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Being able to remember facts about what had happened to them didn’t make PTSD more likely, but crucially, children who experienced delusions while in the ICU tended to have higher PTSD scores than those…
