trong>Narrator:             This is Science Today. There are two different types of intensive care patients: those who anticipate being in the ICU for elective surgeries and those who are trauma patients. All awake unable to speak because they are intubated and while nurses are trained to deal with such patients and attend to their needs, the EZ-Board, a communication board developed by UCLA nurse Lance Patak is making it easier.

Patak:             The EZ-Board is a dry erase board actually that was actually designed by patients in this scenario and its a dry erase board that has pre-printed text on it.
 
Narrator:          There are several columns for patients to express needs and wants – such as, “I am thirsty” or “I want to be bathed”. There's even a pain level chart on the backside of the board.
 
Patak:             They can actually provide subjective data to their practitioner so that we can provide an individual plan of care to this patient. And I think that actually is one of the most important aspects of this board.
 
Narrator:            For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.