Articles: trauma.
-
Meta Analysis
Prevalence of PTSD in Active Duty Members with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI), particularly mild TBI (mTBI), is a significant health concern for U.S. active duty service members (ADSMs), with potential implications for psychiatric outcomes including PTSD. Despite recognizing this association, the prevalence of PTSD among ADSMs with mTBI remains unclear. ⋯ Methodological differences, including diagnostic criteria variability, contribute to the observed variability in prevalence estimates. Despite methodological challenges, this study provides crucial insights into the pooled prevalence of comorbid PTSD and mTBI within the military, emphasizing the need for standardized methodologies and further research to refine understanding and support strategies for affected individuals.
-
An Assessment of Clinical Accuracy of Vital Sign-based Triage Tools Among U.S. and Coalition Forces.
Early appropriate allocation of resources for critically injured combat casualties is essential. This is especially important when inundated with an overwhelming number of casualties where limited resources must be efficiently allocated, such as during mass casualty events. There are multiple scoring systems utilized in the prehospital combat setting, including the shock index (SI), modified shock index (MSI), simple triage and rapid treatment (START), revised trauma score (RTS), new trauma score (NTS), Glasgow Coma Scale + age + pressure (GAP), and the mechanism + GAP (MGAP) score. The optimal score for application to the combat trauma population remains unclear. ⋯ This study retrospectively applied seven triage tools to a database of 12,268 cases from the Department of Defense Trauma Registry to evaluate their performance in predicting early death or massive transfusion in combat. All scoring systems performed well with an AUROC >0.8 for both outcomes. Although the SI and MSI performed best for predicting massive transfusion (both had an AUROC of 0.89), they ranked last for assessment of mortality within 24 hours, with the other tools performing well. START, RTS, NTS, MGAP and GAP reliably identified early death and need for massive transfusion, with MGAP and GAP performing the best overall. These findings highlight the importance of assessing triage tools to best manage resources and ultimately preserve lives of traumatically wounded warfighters. Further studies are needed to explain the surprising performance discrepancy of the SI and MSI in predicting early death and massive transfusion.
-
United States Military operations in resource limited areas are increasing. Furthermore, future peer or near-peer conflicts will require caring for larger numbers of casualties with limited resources. In this setting, traditional renal replacement therapy is not feasible and novel methods are required to address severe acute kidney injury in austere environments lacking definitive therapies. Here, we describe experiments designed to determine the efficacy of a novel peritoneal packing material (Potassium Binding Pack-PBP, CytoSorbents INC) for the acute management of severe hyperkalemia. ⋯ This is the first demonstration of an effective technology for the management of hyperkalemia in trauma in the absence of standard of care; renal replacement therapy. We identified that PBP was able to consistently maintain a concentration gradient between dialysate in the peritoneum and system potassium concentration throughout the experiment. Furthermore, systemic potassium concentrations were reduced in a clinically relevant manner in the PBP group compared to CON. This suggests that peritoneal packing technology for the management of metabolic disturbances in trauma has potential for clinical application. These results are preliminary and should be interpreted with caution.
-
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of combat casualties in modern war with an estimated 20% of casualties experiencing head injury. Since the release of the Brain Trauma Foundation's Guidelines for the Management of Severe Traumatic Brain Injury in 1995, recommendations for management of TBI have included the avoidance of routine hyperventilation. However, both published and anecdotal data suggest that many patients with TBI are inappropriately ventilated during transport, thereby increasing the risk of morbidity and mortality from secondary brain injury. ⋯ The use of a novel ventilator that limits RR and VT may be useful in preventing hyperventilation in TBI patients. Didactic education and simulator-based feedback training may not have significant impact on improving ventilation practices in prehospital providers.
-
The consequences of traumatic spine fracture (TSF) are complex and have a major burden on patients' social life and financial status. In this study, we aimed to investigate the return to work (RTW) after surgically treated TSFs, develop eventual predictors of delayed or failure to RTW, and assess narcotics use following such injuries. ⋯ RTW is an important aspect that needs to be taken into consideration by health care providers. We found that age and high surgery time, blood loss, and hospital stay are significantly impacting patients' RTW after operated TSF.