Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
-
Hospital emergency departments (EDs) treat a high proportion of older people, many as a direct consequence of falling. ⋯ A simple, two-item screening tool demonstrated good external validity and accurately discriminated between fallers and non-fallers. This tool could identify high risk individuals who may benefit from onward referral or intervention after ED discharge.
-
A short-cut review was carried out to establish whether the size of chest drain inserted is important in haemothoraces. Forty-nine papers were found of which four presented the best evidence to answer the clinical question. The author, date and country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, results and study weaknesses of these best papers are shown in table 4. The clinical bottom line is that while the available evidence suggests that small bore drains may be as effective as large bore drains in resolving traumatic haemothoraces without additional complications, there is insufficient evidence currently available to recommend a change to standard practice (ie, large bore drains).
-
Therapeutic hypothermia has become the standard treatment for unconscious patients in cardiac arrest. Although various body parts, including the oesophagus, rectum, bladder and tympanum, can be used for measurement of the core temperature, the oesophageal temperature is preferred because of its accuracy and stability. We first investigated the success rate and procedure time of oesophageal temperature probe (ETP) insertion according to the insertion method. ⋯ The new ETP insertion method had a better first attempt success rate than the conventional method and the alternative method.