The American journal of emergency medicine
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Observational Study
The intensity of pain in the prehospital setting is most strongly reflected in the respiratory rate among physiological parameters.
In order to treat pain optimally, the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) clinician needs to be able to make a reasonable estimation of the severity of the pain. It is hypothesised that various physiological parameters will change as a response to pain. ⋯ In the prehospital setting, there were significant but weak correlations between intensity of pain and physiological parameters. The most clinically relevant association was found with an increased respiratory rate and presence of pale and moist skin among patients aged < 65 years. Among younger patients, respiratory rate may support in the clinical evaluation of pain.
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Foreign body ingestion is a common condition in children. We aimed to compare the incidence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in children that ingested foreign bodies with healthy children. ⋯ We found that the incidence of ADHD symptoms may be high in children referred to emergency services after accidentally ingesting foreign bodies.
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Ultrasound has been increasingly utilized for the identification of endotracheal tube (ETT) location after an intubation attempt, particularly among patients in cardiac arrest. However, prior studies have varied with respect to the choice of transducer and no studies have directly compared the accuracy between transducer types. Our study is the first to directly compare the accuracy of ETT confirmation between the linear and curvilinear transducer. ⋯ The diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound for ETT confirmation did not significantly differ between ultrasound transducer types, but the curvilinear transducer was associated with a longer time to confirmation and lower operator confidence. Further studies are needed to determine if the accuracy would change with more novice providers or in specific patient populations.