The American journal of emergency medicine
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Comparative Study
Psychological scales as predictors of emergency department hospitalizations in suicide attempters.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychological scales reflecting lethality and intent as predictors of suicide attempter's hospitalization. ⋯ The psychological scales can be helpful for predicting suicide attempter's hospitalization in emergency settings. Especially, the RRRS seemed to have a superior predictive ability. Moreover, combining the scales had significantly better predictive performance than use of the individual scale alone did.
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Prehospital airway management increasingly involves supraglottic airway insertion and a paucity of data evaluates outcomes in trauma populations. We aim to describe definitive airway management in traumatically injured patients who necessitated prehospital supraglottic airway insertion. ⋯ Retrospective single institution study.
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Acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) is a potentially life-threatening condition that requires rapid assessment in the emergency department (ED). We aimed to compare the performance of the AIMS65, Glasgow-Blatchford (Blatchford), preendoscopic Rockall (pre-Rockall), and preendoscopic Baylor bleeding (pre-Baylor) scores in predicting 30-day mortality in patients with acute UGIB in the ED setting. ⋯ In patients with acute UGIB in the ED, the AIMS65 and Glasgow-Blatchford scores are clinically more useful for predicting 30-day mortality than the preendoscopic Rockall and preendoscopic Baylor scores. The AIMS65 score might be more ideal for risk stratification in the ED setting.
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To evaluate the efficacy of soluble programmed death-1 (sPD-1) for risk stratification and prediction of 28-day mortality in patients with sepsis, we compared serum sPD-1 with procalcitonin (PCT), C-reactive protein (CRP), and the Mortality in Emergency Department Sepsis (MEDS) score. ⋯ Serum sPD-1 is positively correlated with the severity of sepsis, and it is valuable for risk stratification of patients and prediction of 28-day mortality. Combining sPD-1 with PCT and the MEDS score improves the prognostic evaluation.
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Case Reports
Nonepileptic seizure provoked by cardiac dysrhythmia: A case of ST elevation myocardial infarction.
Acute seizures represent 1% of all visits to emergency departments in the United States. While many acute seizures are correctly attributable to underlying epilepsy, approximately one-third of acute seizures are provoked by underlying and potentially life-threatening acute conditions. ⋯ Cardiac dysrhythmias are known causes of acute seizure-like activity and, if transient and not captured by electrocardiogram tracings during acute episodes, may be incorrectly diagnosed as epileptic seizures. We report a case of acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction presenting with acute symptomatic seizure due to occult transient cardiac dysrhythmia.