Revue médicale de Bruxelles
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The European Community has named five emergencies as being priorities. These five emergencies are: the cardiorespiratory arrest, the myocardial infarction, the severe polytrauma, the cerebral vascular accident and the severe acute dyspnoea. In this article three of them are discussed. ⋯ Within the first three hours the aim is to get the patient to an emergency department (by means of the SMUR), to evaluate the coagulation values of the patient and to perform a head scan (without the injection of contrast) of good quality. If the patient is not too severely incapacitated (NIH score between 4 and 25), if the head scan does not show a hemorrhagic lesion and if there is no contraindication for thrombolysis, Actilyse should be administered. The time it takes to do all of these acts can not exceed the above mentioned three hours.
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At the end of 2005 the new guidelines for the treatment of cardiac arrest were published. The diagnostic criteria of cardiac arrest were simplified and priority is given to thoracic compressions. The ratio of thoracic compressions to insufflations is 30/2. ⋯ In case of asystole or pulse less electrical activity adrenaline is administered as early as possible. Atropine is used in case of pulse less electrical activity with a ventricular response lower than 60/min. In advanced life support a priority is given to whether or not there are treatable secondary causes (4H, 4T), furthermore controlled hypothermia is installed when systemic circulation is restored and optimal support to all vital functions is given.