Resuscitation
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Identifying approaches to improve the accuracy of shock outcome prediction for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
Analysis of the electrocardiogram (ECG) can predict if a cardiac arrest patient in ventricular fibrillation is likely to have a return of spontaneous circulation if defibrillated. The accuracy of such methods determines how useful it is clinically and for retrospective analysis. ⋯ The presence of random effects shows that the shock outcome prediction accuracy can be improved by explaining more of the variation between patients, for example using the approaches outlined above, and that there is within-patient correlation between samples that should be accounted for when evaluating prediction accuracy. The specific peri-arrest factors tested here did not significantly improve prediction accuracy, but other factors should be explored.
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Cardiac arrest is a condition frequently encountered by physicians in the hospital setting including the Emergency Department, Intensive Care Unit and medical/surgical wards. This paper reviews the current literature involving the use of ultrasound in resuscitation and proposes an algorithmic approach for the use of ultrasound during cardiac arrest. At present there is the need for a means of differentiating between various causes of cardiac arrest, which are not a direct result of a primary ventricular arrhythmia. ⋯ Identifying the underlying cause of cardiac arrest represents the one of the greatest challenges of managing patients with asystole or PEA and accurate determination has the potential to improve management by guiding therapeutic decisions. We include several clinical images demonstrating examples of cardiac tamponade, massive pulmonary embolus, and severe hypovolemia secondary to abdominal aortic aneurysm. In conclusion, this protocol has the potential to reduce the time required to determine the etiology of a cardiac arrest and thus decrease the time between arrest and appropriate therapy.
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Assessing the level of consciousness in children: a plea for the Glasgow Coma Motor subscore.
The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) is not always easy to score and its reliability has been questioned. In adults the GCS Motor score has proven a valuable alternative, as it is easier to assess yet shows similar predictive capacity for outcome. We wanted to test the non-inferiority of the Glasgow Coma Motor score GCS-M versus the Total score GCS-T for predicting outcome in children. ⋯ The GCS Motor subscore was shown to have at least the same predictive ability for outcome as the total GCS. It is our opinion that the total GCS is unnecessarily complicated (especially in children). Using the Motor score alone will improve scoring compliance and statistical performance. We do not believe that the reduction in number of potential scores from 13 to 6 would decrease the descriptive capacity significantly, since clinical algorithms typically group values of the total GCS into five or fewer ranges.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Advanced Cardiac Life Support Courses: live actors do not improve training results compared with conventional manikins.
To determine whether using live actors to increase the reality of the scenario improves knowledge retention in Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) Courses. MAIN SECONDARY OBJECTIVES: To determine the effects of age, time since graduation from nursing or medicine, sex, medical specialty, and workplace in knowledge retention. ⋯ The use of live actors did not affect knowledge retention in this group. Older age and a longer period since graduation were associated with the worst scores and the lowest levels of knowledge retention.
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To evaluate quality of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) performed during transport after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. ⋯ The fraction of time without chest compressions increased during transport of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients. Every effort should therefore be made to stabilise patients on-scene before transport to hospital, but all transport with ongoing CPR is not futile.