Resuscitation
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Prior to establishing a protocol for pre-arrival instructions for cardio-pulmonary resuscitation in the Vienna emergency medical system dispatch centre, a study was performed to determine whether any problems exist which may compromise guidance for basic life-support on the telephone. To evaluate the feasibility of prearrival instructions, a retrospective analysis of cardiac arrest calls was performed. We reviewed the Vienna emergency medical services dispatch centre tape recordings, ambulance run sheets and the hospital charts of 114 patients suffering from atraumatic cardiac arrest. ⋯ Not one caller was distraught. Our data show that most objections to the feasibility of pre-arrival instructions can be refuted. We conclude that in Vienna the setting and location of arrest will impose few problems on the performance of bystander-cardio-pulmonary resuscitation using pre-arrival instructions given by dispatchers.
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The Faculty of Medicine in Ljubljana has been offering formal training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to its students since 1988. The CPR courses are taught mostly by anaesthesiologists. To determine whether our training programme provides the students with adequate skills and knowledge in CPR we analyzed the results of the examinations, tests, questionnaires and interviews of all students who had received CPR training at our Faculty of Medicine in 1994. ⋯ The 6th year students ended the advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) courses and practice in the operating theatre with both satisfactory basic theoretical knowledge and also practical skills in CPR. Thus in the oral examination at the end of the 6th year the success rate at first attempt was high, and the interviews with these students showed that they had been given the opportunities to practice airway management, breathing support and venous cannulation. These findings suggest that the education programme provides our students with both a sound basic knowledge and adequate practical skills in CPR for postgraduate training in emergency medicine.
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This study was designed to test the effects of active compression-decompression (ACD) versus standard (STD) cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on hemodynamics after prolonged cardiac arrest (CA). ⋯ In our study, a comparison of STD and ACD CPR revealed no significant differences in coronary perfusion pressures and ETCO2. We conclude that after prolonged CA, ACD CPR does not provide an apparent hemodynamic advantage over STD CPR.
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Meta Analysis
Reporting approval by research ethics committees and subjects' consent in human resuscitation research.
To determine how frequently reports of research in human cardiopulmonary resuscitation mention approval by a research ethics committee and address subjects' consent. ⋯ Reports of resuscitation research have not consistently mentioned approval from a research ethics committee or addressed subjects' consent for interventional studies using human subjects. However, they are doing so more frequently in recent years as journal requirements for reporting change. REC approval is now almost always being reported, but subjects' consent is often not addressed. Journal editors and reviewers should ensure that authors adhere to the journal's instructions about reporting ethical conduct of experiments.