To describe the characteristics of wrestling injuries occurring in male athletes aged 7–17 treated in United States (U.S.) emergency departments (ED) from 2000–2006, and to compare injury patterns between younger & older youth wrestlers.
Many medications are administered according to the weight of the patient. Because it is often not available in the emergency department (ED), the patient’s weight is therefore estimated. Several studies have shown that emergency physicians are inaccurate at estimating a patient’s weight.1–3 Medications to facilitate intubation, induction agents and paralytics are often weight-based. This study evaluated the accuracy of dosing succinylcholine, a paralytic and etomidate, an induction agent, in our ED.
GlideScope® videolaryngoscopy (GVL) has been shown to improve visualization of the glottis compared to direct laryngoscopy (DL). However, due to the angle of approach to the glottis, intubation can still be challenging. We hypothesized that novice GVL users would be able to intubate faster and easier using an airway introducer (frequently known as a bougie) than with a standard intubating stylet.
Author Affiliation Merle E. Hamburger, PhD Center for Disease Control & Prevention, Atlanta, GA Kathleen C. Basile, PhD Center for Disease Control & Prevention, Atlanta, GA To the Editor: Within public health research, “reciprocal” or “mutual” violence is defined as relationship violence perpetrated by both partners in the same relationship.1–2 Michael Johnson3 coined the phrase “common couple […]
To determine the prevalence of diabetes in Southern California emergency department (ED) patients and describe the self-reported general health, demographic and social characteristics of these patients with diabetes.
Out-of-hospital emergencies occur frequently, and laypersons are often the first to respond to these events. As an outreach to our local communities, we developed “Basic Emergency Interventions Everyone Should Know,” a three-hour program addressing cardiopulmonary resuscitation and automated external defibrillator use, heart attack and stroke recognition and intervention, choking and bleeding interventions and infant and child safety.
Persons with chronic or recurrent pain frequently visit the emergency department (ED), yet little research examines this experience. We conducted this national survey to assess patients’ ED experiences.
A 31-year-man from Guinea, who had moved to Barcelona three years before consultation, was admitted to the emergency department because of a wasting syndrome, characterized by asthenia, anorexia and weight loss. These symptoms had been insidiously developed over the past three months.
Volvulus is a frequent condition in patients presenting in the emergency department (ED) with abdominal pain. While cecal volvulus occurs more often in young patients, sigmoid volvulus is more common in elderly patients.
A seven-year-old male presented with fever, left-sided facial redness, swelling and proptosis over a 24-hour period. He had noted left-sided toothache and rhinorrhea over the preceding week. On presentation, he stated that he was unable to see “anything, including light” from his left eye.
A previously healthy 38-year-old woman, with no significant past medical history, presented to the emergency department with acute onset of weakness after outpatient sclerotherapy. She had two milliliters of 0.5% foamed tetradecylsulfate injected into right lower extremity varicose veins. Twenty minutes after completion of the procedure, she had acute onset of right upper and lower extremity weakness.
A 22-year-old man presented to a rural Ugandan clinic with three months of progressive dyspnea. He described a non-productive cough and subjective fevers and chills. He appears mildly dyspneic but is in no acute distress.
Emergency physicians (EP) frequently encounter angioedema involving the lips and tongue. However, angioedema from Angiotensin Converting Enzyme inhibitors or hereditary angioedema (HAE) can present with gastrointestinal symptoms due to bowel wall involvement. EPs should begin to consider this clinical entity as a potential cause for abdominal pain and associated gastrointestinal symptoms given the common use of medications that can precipitate angioedema. We report a case of a 34-year-old woman who presented with abdominal cramping, vomiting and diarrhea due to an acute exacerbation of HAE.
A healthy 26 year-old G3P2 12 weeks pregnant with twins presented to the emergency department after the abrupt onset of palpitations, dizziness, shortness of breath and chest pain. An initial electrocardiogram demonstrated frequent preventricular contractions, which progressed to runs of sustained ventricular tachycardia (VT)
We examined the frequency of significant CAD in patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with chest pain who have had a recent negative or inconclusive (<85% of predicted maximum heart rate) cardiac stress test.
Chest pain (CP) patients in the Emergency Department (ED) present a diagnostic dilemma, with a low prevalence of coronary disease but grave consequences with misdiagnosis. A common diagnostic strategy involves ED cardiac monitoring while excluding myocardial necrosis, followed by stress testing. We sought to describe the use of stress echocardiography (echo) at our institution, to identify cardiac pathology compared with stress electrocardiography (ECG) alone.
High levels of inflammatory biochemical markers are associated with an increased risk among patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). The objective of the current study was to evaluate the prognostic significance of the systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) among ACS patients with no clinical or radiological evidence of congestive heart failure (CHF).
Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) has been shown to improve survival and neurological outcome in patients resuscitated after out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) from ventricular fibrillation/ventricular tachycardia (VF/VT). We evaluated the effects of using a TH protocol in a large community hospital emergency department (ED) for all patients with neurological impairment after resuscitated OHCA regardless of presenting rhythm. We hypothesized improved mortality and neurological outcomes without increased complication rates.
To determine if ED activation of interventional cardiology could significantly improve reperfusion times and reach the ACC/AHA target of 90 minutes or less in a safety net hospital, a Level I trauma center and teaching hospital serving primarily uninsured and underinsured patient population with door-to-balloon times ranking in the lowest quartile of United States hospitals.
Effort thrombosis, or Paget-Schroetter Syndrome, refers to axillary-subclavian vein thrombosis associated with strenuous and repetitive activity of the upper extremities. Anatomical abnormalities at the thoracic outlet and repetitive trauma to the endothelium of the subclavian vein are key factors in its initiation and progression.
In 1996 Sgarbossa reviewed 17 ventricular-paced electrocardiograms (ECGs) in acute myocardial infarction (AMI) for signs of ischemia. Several characteristics of the paced ECG were predictive of AMI. We sought to evaluate the criteria in ventricular-paced ECGs in an emergency department (ED) cohort.
To determine if the effective use of Health Information Technologies (HIT) and the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) affects emergency department (ED) usage in a complicated frequently presenting patient population.
Alterations in serum biomarkers have been used to evaluate for pancreatitis in the emergency department (ED). Studies have shown lipase to be as sensitive and more specific than amylase in diagnosing pancreatitis and that amylase plus lipase does not improve accuracy over lipase alone.
Emergency department (ED) frequent users account for a large number of annual ED visits and often receive radiological studies as a part of their evaluation. We report a pilot study of a case management program for ED frequent users to reduce ED usage and radiation exposure.