Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Jun 2021
Battlefield acupuncture added no benefit as an adjunct analgesic in emergency department for abdominal, low back or limb trauma pain.
To ascertain whether ear acupuncture (modified Battlefield technique) as an adjunct (Adj-BFA) to standard analgesia care (SAC) significantly reduces pain scores compared with sham acupuncture (Adj-Sham) or SAC alone, when delivered by medical and nursing practitioners in an ED. ⋯ The present study on 90 patients did not show a significant difference in analgesia outcomes in the first 2 h using Adj-BFA for acute pain in the ED, and there were no significant differences for secondary outcomes between treatment arms. Given the mixed results of recent BFA trials, further research using the original BFA technique on different painful conditions, as either stand-alone or as-adjunct to non-opioid analgesia are needed before BFA can be recommended as a technique for acute pain management in the ED.
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Emerg Med Australas · Jun 2021
Multicultural presentation of chest pain at an emergency department in Australia.
To investigate differences in presenting patient characteristics, investigation, management and related outcomes between culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) and non-CALD chest pain (CP) patients presenting to the ED. ⋯ Both CALD and non-CALD ED CP patients had similar test ordering, medication administration and clinical outcomes, but this was in the context of CALD patients being 10 years older together with a small study sample size. A larger cohort, matched for age, would provide further insights into potentially important differences.
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A trauma patient with orbital compartment syndrome may lose vision within hours of the injury. This article describes an approach to decompressing the orbit which may be sight-saving.
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Emerg Med Australas · Jun 2021
Comparing propofol with placebo for early resolution of acute migraine in adult emergency department patients: A double-blind randomised controlled trial.
To compare propofol with placebo in adult ED patients with acute migraine. Primary outcome was headache resolution by 1 h. Secondary outcome was reduction in headache severity by two or more points on a numerical rating scale. ⋯ Propofol was not superior to placebo for the primary outcome of early headache resolution. Superiority of propofol for the secondary outcome of headache severity reduction suggests that further research may be warranted.
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Emerg Med Australas · Jun 2021
Advanced natural language processing technique to predict patient disposition based on emergency triage notes.
To demonstrate the potential of machine learning and capability of natural language processing (NLP) to predict disposition of patients based on triage notes in the ED. ⋯ Machine learning and NLP can be together applied to the ED triage note to predict patient disposition with a high level of accuracy. The algorithm can potentially assist ED clinicians in early identification of patients requiring admission by mitigating the cognitive load, thus optimises resource allocation in EDs.