J Emerg Med
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Multicenter Study Observational Study
Relationship Between Pain Management Modality and Return Rates for Lower Back Pain in the Emergency Department.
Emerging evidence suggests that opioid use for patients with acute low back pain does not improve functional outcomes and contributes to long-term opioid use. Little is known about the impact of opioid administration in the emergency department (ED) for patients with low back pain. ⋯ Patients receiving opioids were more likely to return to the ED within 30 d than those receiving received nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or acetaminophen. This suggests that the use of opioids for low back pain in the ED may not be an effective strategy, and there may be an opportunity to appropriately treat more of these patients with nonopioid medications.
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Patients presenting to the emergency department with a possible barbeque brush bristle ingestion pose many challenges. A detailed history and oral examination is needed and the typical first line investigation involves flexible laryngoscopy for direct visualization of the bristle. ⋯ Why Should an Emergency Physician Be Aware of This? Emergency physicians should have a high index of suspicion for bristle ingestion in patients with acute onset of pain or a foreign body sensation after ingesting grilled meats. Patients may require imaging to identify bristles if physical examination and laryngoscopy is negative.
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Rapidly assessing an undifferentiated patient and developing a gestalt for "sick vs. not sick" is a core component of emergency medicine (EM). Developing this skill requires clinical experience and pattern recognition, which can be difficult to attain during a typical EM clerkship. ⋯ A teaching shift in triage can increase medical students' self-assessed rapid assessment skills for patients in the ED. Benefits to the teaching attending included the opportunity to perform direct observation, give real-time feedback, and identify real-time teaching moments.
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Atraumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is a deadly condition that most commonly presents as acute, severe headache. Controversy exists concerning evaluation of SAH based on the time from onset of symptoms, specifically if the headache occurred > 6 h prior to patient presentation. ⋯ The probability of SAH above which emergency clinicians should perform a lumbar puncture is 1.0%. This threshold is essentially the same as the estimated probability of SAH in patients with a negative head CT obtained more than 6 h from symptom onset. Emergency physicians might reasonably decide to either perform or forego this procedure. Consequently, we contend that the decision whether to perform lumbar puncture in these instances is an excellent candidate for shared decision-making.
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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), most frequently presents with respiratory symptoms, such as fever, dyspnea, shortness of breath, cough, or myalgias. There is now a growing body of evidence that demonstrates that severe SARS-CoV-2 infections can develop clinically significant coagulopathy, inflammation, and cardiomyopathy, which have been implicated in COVID-19-associated cerebrovascular accidents (CVAs). ⋯ We report an uncommon presentation of a 32-year-old man who sustained a large vessel cerebellar stroke associated with a severe COVID-19 infection. He presented with a headache, worse than his usual migraine, dizziness, rotary nystagmus, and dysmetria on examination, but had no respiratory symptoms initially. He was not a candidate for thrombolytic therapy or endovascular therapy and was managed with clopidogrel, aspirin, and atorvastatin. During hospital admission he developed COVID-19-related hypoxia and pneumonia, but ultimately he was discharged to home rehabilitation. WHY SHOULD AN EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN BE AWARE OF THIS?: We present this case to increase awareness among emergency physicians of the growing number of reports of neurologic and vascular complications, such as ischemic CVAs, in otherwise healthy individuals who are diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infection. A brief review of the current literature will help elucidate possible mechanisms, risk factors, and current treatments for CVA associated with SARS-CoV-2.