Resuscitation
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Resuscitation skills are a fundamental part of anaesthetic practice. Anaesthetists are involved in performing resuscitation and training of other staff in resuscitation techniques. ⋯ The results show that although they are involved in training, very few attend cardiac arrests. Most have not, and will not, attend the ALS course but would prefer shorter regular resuscitation updates, especially in those skills that they no longer use.
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Multicenter Study
Long-term outcome of paediatric cardiorespiratory arrest in Spain.
To analyse the final outcome of cardiorespiratory arrest (CRA) in children and the neurological and functional state of survivors at 1 year. ⋯ Prognosis of CRA in children continues to be poor in terms of survival but quite good in terms of neurological and functional status among survivors. Additional strategies and efforts are needed to improve the short-term prognosis of paediatric CRA. However, the long-term outcome of survivors is reassuring.
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The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between outcome from cardiac arrest and infection status at the time of in-hospital cardiac arrest. ⋯ Infection may be becoming an increasingly important association with cardiac arrest in the hospitalised population. Initial survival from cardiac arrest is the same as for non-infected patients, but longer term survival is much poorer. Long-term survival from ventricular fibrillation or pulseless ventricular tachycardia is relatively poor, in spite of similar initial success.
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This article will describe the access to, and delivery of, emergency medical care in the United Kingdom. We describe how UK Ambulance Services respond to emergency calls and how UK Emergency Departments are configured to provide emergency clinical care. Ambulance technician and paramedic training and clinical skill mix is outlined and UK emergency medicine training and the involvement of doctors in prehospital care is highlighted. We describe the strengths and weaknesses of current Emergency Medical Systems (EMS) in the UK and comment on future areas for improving and developing emergency patient care.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
CPREzy: an evaluation during simulated cardiac arrest on a hospital bed.
CPREzy is a new adjunct designed to improve the application of manual external chest compressions (ECC) during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The aim of this study was to determine the effect of using the CPREzy device compared to standard CPR during the simulated resuscitation of a patient on a hospital bed. Twenty medical student volunteers were randomised using a cross over trial design to perform 3 min of continuous ECC using CPREzy and standard CPR. ⋯ This was due to a higher number of low compressions (26% of total compressions for CPREzy versus 1% for standard CPR, P < 0.001). In conclusion, CPREzy was associated with significant improvements in ECC performance. Further animal and clinical studies are required to validate this finding in vivo and to see if it translates to an improvement in outcome in human victims of cardiac arrest.