Anaesthesia and intensive care
-
A resuscitation trolley has been designed to meet the following requirements. Continuous oxygen supply from the trolley for the duration of the emergency; medical suction of similar strength to that of an ICU treatment bay and provision of equipment and drugs in a modular form, which is uniform across the institution, and which allows immediate replacement from stock. These requirements have been fulfilled whilst maintaining a total trolley weight and manoeuvrability similar to that of commercially manufactured trolleys available in Australia.
-
Anaesth Intensive Care · Apr 1998
Case ReportsPulmonary aspiration of blood following traumatic laryngeal mask airway insertion.
An unusual and potentially life-threatening complication arising from a relatively common event--bleeding due to traumatic laryngeal mask insertion--is presented. It demonstrates that the laryngeal mask airway (LMA) cannot always be relied upon to protect the lower airway from upper airway bleeding.
-
Anaesth Intensive Care · Feb 1998
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical TrialIntravenous tenoxicam for analgesia following laparoscopic cholecystectomy.
In a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial (power of 80% to detect a 30% reduction in morphine consumption, P < 0.05) we have determined that intraoperative intravenous administration of tenoxicam 40 mg during laparoscopic cholecystectomy, when compared with placebo, was associated with a significant reduction in consumption of morphine at 6 hours and 12 hours (P < 0.05) but not at 24 hours, when assessed by patient-controlled analgesia. Furthermore there was a significantly greater requirement for "rescue" analgesia with intramuscular morphine in the placebo group during the period of the study. There was no difference between the groups in pain scores, either at rest or on movement, nor in the incidence of nausea and vomiting. No patient in either group suffered a respiratory rate less than 8/min or oversedation at any time, and there were no other adverse effects.
-
This prospective study was designed to describe problems that arise when Aboriginal people undergo anaesthesia, in order to develop guidelines for anaesthetists who are not accustomed to treating Aboriginal people. Data were collected on 1122 consecutive different individuals undergoing anaesthesia at Royal Darwin Hospital, 24.5% of whom described themselves as Aboriginal. ⋯ Communication difficulties were more commonly reported in Aboriginal patients; the most common difficulty was apparent shyness or fear, rather than actual language difficulty. The results suggest that the treatment of Aboriginal people involves diagnosis and management of diverse preoperative medical problems, and that better management may be achieved by learning simple cultural strategies and by adding Aboriginal interpreters and health workers to the anaesthetic team.