Resuscitation
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Practice Guideline Guideline
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation standards for clinical practice and training in the UK.
The Royal College of Anaesthetists, the Royal College of Physicians, the Intensive Care Society and the Resuscitation Council (UK) have published new resuscitation standards. The document provides advice to UK healthcare organisations, resuscitation committees and resuscitation officers on all aspects of the resuscitation service. It includes sections on resuscitation training, resuscitation equipment, the cardiac arrest team, cardiac arrest prevention, patient transfer, post resuscitation care, audit and research. ⋯ The practice of resuscitation should be audited to maintain and improve standards of care. A do not attempt resuscitation (DNAR) policy should be compiled, communicated to relevant members of staff, used and audited regularly. Funding must be provided to support an effective resuscitation service.
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To evaluate the characteristics, outcome and prognostic factors among children suffering from out of hospital cardiac arrest in Sweden. ⋯ Among children suffering from out of hospital cardiac arrest in Sweden that were not crew witnessed, the overall survival is low (4%). The chance of survival appears to be markedly increased if the arrest occurs outside the patients home compared with at home. No other strong predictors for an increased chance of survival could be demonstrated.
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In 1994, all emergency medical services (EMS) ambulance officers in Singapore were trained to perform pre-hospital defibrillation with semi-automated external defibrillators (AED). All non-traumatic cardiac arrest patients over 10 years old were included, excluding those who were obviously dead and children below 36 kg. The data were collected by the ambulance officers according to the Utstein guidelines. ⋯ Our survival rate of bystander witnessed VF/VT arrest is comparable to large metropolitan cities in the USA. The determinants of survival include EMS witnessed arrest and VF/VT arrest. Increased quantity and quality of bystander CPR rate may improve the outcome in bystander witnessed cardiac arrest.
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This is a study of the influence of transthoracic impedance (TTI) on defibrillation, resuscitation and survival in patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), treated with a non-escalating impedance-compensating 150 J biphasic waveform defibrillator. ⋯ High impedance patients were defibrillated by the biphasic waveform used in this study at high rates with a fixed energy of 150 J and without energy escalation. Rapid defibrillation rather than differences in patient impedance accounts for resuscitation success.
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Although modern defibrillators are nearly always successful in terminating ventricular fibrillation (VF), multiple defibrillation attempts are usually required to achieve return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC). This is potentially deleterious as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) must be discontinued during each defibrillation attempt which causes deterioration in the heart muscle and reduces the chance of ROSC from later defibrillation attempts. In this work defibrillation outcomes are predicted prior to electrical shocks using a neural network model to analyse VF time series in an attempt to avoid defibrillation attempts that do not result in ROSC. ⋯ Pre-shock VF ECG time series can be classified according to the defibrillation conversion to a return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) or No-ROSC.