Canadian Medical Association journal
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Aggressive management of severe burns minimizes contractures and helps to maintain muscle tone, joint function and psychological well-being. The positioning, activity and exercise programs, splinting and bandaging, and skin care of burned children carried out by the burns team at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto is outlined.
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Respiratory distress with episodes of cyanosis, intercostal retraction and sibilant rhonchi occurred in a 2-year-old boy over a 48-hour period following serious smoke inhalation. Worsening of the child's condition accompanied these findings, culminating in sudden loss of air entry, severe respiratory distress and loss of consciousness, which necessitated endotracheal intubation for resuscitation. Pronounced improvement followed removal of two pseudomembranous bronchial casts from the airway by suctioning, and thereafter recovery was uneventful.
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A large-scale disaster exercise was conducted to assess how one large community would handle such a situation - particularly, how it would deal with 150 casualties. The planning, undertaken by a subcommittee composed of representatives of all resource groups in the city, took more than a year. The deficiencies of the disaster plan detected during the exercise, which included a lack of trained personnel and various problems of communication, are now being corrected.
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A serologic survey was made in 15 health unit areas, testing some 5000 individuals in the age groups 4 to 6, 11 to 13, 15 to 17 and 23 to 45 years. Two types of serious deficiency were found. Only 65% of children 4 to 6 years old had antibodies to all three types of poliovirus, the antibodies being due almost entirely to immunization with Salk vaccine. ⋯ Even in those who had had six or more doses of the antigens 5% had no diphtheria antitoxin and 1 to 2% had no tetanus antitoxin. This apparently refractory state is probably due to the use of unadsorbed toxoids, and it is clear that adsorbed toxoids should be used. In the adults, diphtheria antitoxin was found in only 55% and tetanus antitoxin in only 38%.