Background: Sedation is a common practice in ICU in order to reduce the anxiety, increase tolerance and to improve the outcomes of intervention is the Intensive care Unit. This is due to patients admitted to the ICU require invasive and uncomfortable interventions such as mechanical ventilation. The sedation of the patient reduces the stress response, provides anxiolysis, improves the tolerance of ventilator support and facilitates nursing care.

Objective: To compare the effect of Dexmedetomidine versus Midazolam for sedation of critically ill patients.

Materials and Methods: A prospective, randomized, double blinded study was undertaken in the Department of Emergency Medicine, of Chigateri General Hospital and Bapuji Hospitals attached to JJM Medical College, Davanagere from March 2012 to March 2013. A total of 100 patients aged above 18 years who were critically ill and admitted to Intensive care units of the above hospitals were included as subjects.

Results: The mean age of the subjects of Dexmedetomidine group was 41.9 (±12.4) years and patients of midazolam group was 41.1 years.The mean weight of the patients in Dexmedetomidine group was 57.2 (±13.5) kgs and the mean weight of the patients in Midazolam group was 57.8 (±12.2) Kgs.The mean sedation score was 0.6 in dexmedetomidine group and 0.1 in Midazolam group at 5 mins after admission.

Conclusion: This study had shown the efficacy of Dexmedetomidine as equal as Midazolam. The hemodynamic parameters also remained normal while use of this drug. This study had also shown that the less adverse effects and number of add on sedative agents were less in Dexmedetomidine group compared to midazolam.