Resuscitation
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Observational Study
Are characteristics of hospitals associated with outcome after cardiac arrest? Insights from the Great Paris registry.
As post-cardiac arrest care may influence patients' outcome, characteristics of receiving hospitals should be integrated in the evaluation of survival. We aimed at assessing the influence of care level center on patients' survival at hospital discharge using a regional registry of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients (OHCA). ⋯ In this population-based study, characteristics of receiving hospitals are not associated with survival rate at discharge. This might be partially explained by the prehospital triage organization used in France.
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Observational Study
Survival and neurological outcome in the elderly after in-hospital cardiac arrest.
There have been few studies of the outcome in elderly patients who have suffered in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) and the association between cardiac arrest characteristics and survival. ⋯ Increasing age among the elderly is associated with a lower 30-day survival after IHCA. Less aggressive treatment and a worse risk profile might contribute to these findings. Relatively high survival rates among certain subgroups suggest that discussions about advanced directives should be individualized. Most survivors have good neurological outcome, even patients over 90 years of age.
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Utstein-style guidelines use an established consensus process, endorsed by the international resuscitation community, to facilitate and structure resuscitation research and publication. The first "Guidelines for Uniform Reporting of Data From Drowning" were published over a decade ago. During the intervening years, resuscitation science has advanced considerably, thus making revision of the guidelines timely. In particular, measurement of cardiopulmonary resuscitation elements and neurological outcomes reporting have advanced substantially. The purpose of this report is to provide updated guidelines for reporting data from studies of resuscitation from drowning. ⋯ The report describes the consensus process, rationale for selecting data elements to be reported, definitions and priority of data, and scoring methods. These guidelines are intended to improve the clarity of scientific communication and the comparability of scientific investigations.
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An increasing number of failing automated external defibrillators (AEDs) is reported: AEDs not giving a shock or other malfunction. We assessed to what extent AEDs are 'failing' and whether this had a device-related or operator-related cause. ⋯ Errors associated with AED use are rare (4%) and when occurring are in 72% caused by the operator or circumstances of use. Fully automatic AEDs may prevent the majority of these errors.
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Time from the onset of "low or no flow" indicators of cardiac failure to initiation of cardiopulmonary resuscitation is an important quality metric thought to improve the likelihood of survival and preservation of end organ function. We hypothesized that delays in initiation of chest compressions were under recognized during in-hospital resuscitation and aimed to develop a system which identifies the actual time of deterioration during cardiac events. ⋯ There is a significant difference between time of deterioration to initiation of chest compressions and the time of recognition to initiation of chest compressions. Resuscitation records should be modified to include more information about the actual timing of patient deterioration.