European journal of emergency medicine : official journal of the European Society for Emergency Medicine
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Recent data, focused on the inability to transfer emergency patients to inpatient beds, has shown this to be the single most important factor contributing to overcrowding. Our Emergency Department (ED) was reorganized in the year 2000 based on the optimization of patients' flow. In this model, the emergency team had to refer patients to units fitting best to their condition with minimal delays. ⋯ A short time of stay in the ED is compatible with both a good diagnosis and a good orientation of ED patients requiring admission for specialized care.
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Case Reports
Metabolic acidosis in a patient with type 1 diabetes mellitus complicated by methanol and amitriptyline intoxication.
Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is a widely known acute metabolic complication of diabetes mellitus (DM), which can be potentially fatal. It is not difficult to diagnose when a patient with DM comes with symptoms such as coma, fruity breath, hyperglycemia, acidosis, and tachypnea. If the patient has not been diagnosed with DM before, then other sicknesses characterized by an increased anion gap should be considered. ⋯ The patient underwent hemodialysis and recovered completely. This case illustrates that a seemingly obvious medical condition can mask serious intoxication. This report is the only publication on two different entities characterized by an increased anion gap and at the end the patient has been cured completely without any complications.
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Case Reports
First case report of recreational use of 2,5-dimethoxy-4-chloroamphetamine confirmed by toxicological screening.
Routine toxicological screening is generally not undertaken in patients with recreational drug toxicity. We report here the benefits of toxicological screening in confirming drugs that have been ingested and potentially detecting drugs that have not previously been reported in the medical literature. ⋯ As 2,5-dimethoxy-4-chloroamphetamine is a substituted amphetamine, it is covered under the generic Misuse of Drugs act (1971) in the UK; although in the majority of the EU it remains uncontrolled, as there is no similar generic drug legislation. We believe that discrepancies in the legal status of recreational drugs in the EU limit the effectiveness of drug enforcement policies and that EU drug legislation should be harmonized to ensure consistency.
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The objective of this study is to report a case of ischemic subglottic damage after a short-time intubation with a large, overinflated endotracheal tube cuff in a child. The study uses individual case report. ⋯ The child presented postextubation stridor with subglottic edema. Inappropriate handling of tracheal intubation without accurate measurement of endotracheal tube size and intracuff pressures of endotracheal tubes, can cause airway trauma and place patients at risk.
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The UK paediatric early warning score (PEWS) was developed for inpatients, looking at admission to the HDU and PICU and trying to produce a system which would recognize those children at risk of admission. Since the introduction of the '4-h wait', accident and emergency (A&E) departments have been under increasing strain to assess, treat and admit patients (if required) as quickly as possible. We designed this study with the view of identifying if the PEWS score could be used as a triage tool, to detect those patients who will need admission and therefore speed up the process of admitting children to the ward. ⋯ A PEWS score of >or=2 had a sensitivity of 37% and a specificity of 88%. PEWS is of limited value in predicting admission (in a triage setting) in a population of undifferentiated disease. However, a low PEWS score has a high specificity, that is, a patient scoring <2 is unlikely to need admission.