European journal of emergency medicine : official journal of the European Society for Emergency Medicine
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Anecdotally it has been noted that the traditional chest signs associated with bronchiolitis appear inconsistently in infants clinically diagnosed with bronchiolitis. We wished to explore this more formally. ⋯ Clinical signs associated with bronchiolitis vary according to age. Infants older than 6 months are more likely to present with wheeze and infants less than 4 months old are likely to present without chest signs on auscultation.
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Fluoroquinolones and third-generation cephalosporins are particularly prone to select bacterial resistance to antibiotics. We aimed to assess the temporal trends of antibiotic use in the emergency department adults unit of an academic hospital between 2002 and 2012. ⋯ Use of third-generation cephalosporins increased significantly, from 9.7% of total antibiotic use to 22.6% (estimate per year, 1.2±0.2%, P<0.0001), whereas use of fluoroquinolones decreased from 19.5 to 12.3% (estimate per year, -0.7±0.2%, P<0.003). Given their ability to select bacterial resistance, especially extended-spectrum β-lactamases, particular attention should be paid to increasing use of third-generation cephalosporins in the emergency department.
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Sepsis is a serious condition with high mortality. Early treatment improves outcome and can be initiated by emergency medical services (EMS) personnel.The primary aim of our study was to investigate how many sepsis patients are transported by EMS to the internist at the emergency department (ED). The secondary aims were to compare these EMS patients with patients who arrived at the ED otherwise and to investigate how these patients were managed. We further investigated how often the diagnosis sepsis/infection was documented by EMS. ⋯ Half of the patients with sepsis arrive at the ED by EMS. These patients are seriously ill, and although these patients are likely to benefit from early treatment, they are often transported with nonurgent rides and both assessment of vital signs and early start of treatment are not routinely performed.
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The aim of the present study is to describe the clinical and epidemiological characteristics, complications and outcome of patients with haemophilia and acute head injury (AHI) at the emergency department (ED), and develop a protocol to prevent early and late complications. This is a retrospective cohort study including all patients with haemophilia and AHI admitted to the ED. We identified 26 patients with AHI. ⋯ The discharge diagnosis was as follows: 3.8% subdural haematoma, 3.8% cerebellar epidural haematoma and 92.3% uncomplicated AHI. We propose the following protocol: a computed tomography scan upon arrival and another within 48 h post-AHI, unless there is an absence of clinical symptoms. In addition, all patients must self-administer a clotting factor as soon as possible and be observed in the ED for at least 48 h.