Pediatric emergency care
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Pediatric emergency care · Mar 2010
Change in parental reasons for use of an urban pediatric emergency department in the past decade.
To assess changes over the past decade in parental reasons associated with nonurgent visits to pediatric emergency departments (PEDs) during regular primary care office hours. ⋯ Over the last decade, despite the presence of a usual source of care, a greater number of parents report visiting this urban PED during regular office hours for reasons unrelated to parental perceived urgency. Limited access to care and greater trust in the medical expertise available in PEDs have played important roles. Approaches to decreasing nonurgent visits must take into account all of these factors.
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Pediatric emergency care · Mar 2010
Evaluation of a transthecal digital nerve block in the injured pediatric patient.
Digital anesthesia in the pediatric population has traditionally been accomplished using a ring block that requires multiple injections. A modified transthecal digital nerve block is a single-injection technique of the midproximal phalanx that has been shown to be technically simple and highly effective in adults. ⋯ The single-injection modified transthecal digital nerve block is a safe and effective method for digital anesthesia in children. These data confirm the applicability of transthecal digital nerve block for children with finger and thumb injuries that require minor surgical procedures.
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Pediatric emergency care · Mar 2010
Pediatric cellulitis: success of emergency department short-course intravenous antibiotics.
The administration of 1 to 2 doses of intravenous (IV) antibiotics in the emergency department (ED) followed by discharge on oral antibiotics has become a treatment option for children with cellulitis, despite an absence of evidence supporting this practice. The objective of this study was to determine the failure rate of ED short-course IV antibiotic therapy (IV-short course). ⋯ Children with cellulitis frequently receive IV antibiotics. Short-course IV antibiotic therapy is associated with a high failure rate and prolonged ED stay compared with those in children treated with oral antibiotics alone. However, their clinical similarity to the IV-admit group, shorter length of hospital stay, but high failure rate mandates further evaluation before widespread adoption.
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Pediatric emergency care · Mar 2010
Case ReportsTotal procedural requirements as indication for emergency department sedation.
Indications for pediatric procedural sedation and analgesia are generally based on the need to manage pain or elicit cooperation for a single major procedure in the emergency department setting. However, multiple minor procedures such as vascular access, urethral catheterization, lumbar puncture, or superficial abscess drainage may be required in the care of a single child, and combining these activities may produce as much stress as a single major procedure. The use of procedural sedation in children based on total procedural requirements is proposed with 2 illustrative cases as examples of this concept.
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Pediatric emergency care · Mar 2010
Do pediatric headaches respond to bilateral lower cervical paraspinous bupivacaine injections?
Bilateral lower cervical paraspinous intramuscular bupivacaine injections have recently been reported as a therapeutic modality for headache pain in adult patients presenting to an emergency department. In this study, we accomplished a retrospective review of all pediatric patients with headaches who were treated with this technique in an emergency department setting over a 16-month period. The therapeutic response of all pediatric patients who received bilateral lower cervical paraspinous intramuscular bupivacaine injections for headache pain is described in this article. ⋯ These retrospective observations suggest that bilateral lower cervical paraspinous intramuscular injections with small amounts of bupivacaine may have a therapeutic role in the management of headache pain in children, and their rate of therapeutic response may be similar to that recently reported for adult headache patients.