Resuscitation
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Observational Study
Focused Cardiac Ultrasound after return of spontaneous circulation in cardiac-arrest patients.
Focused cardiac ultrasound (FOCUS) can be management-altering in post-resuscitation care following cardiac arrest.
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Neurological status at hospital discharge is routinely used to assess patient outcome after cardiac arrest. However, attribution of impairment to the arrest is valid only if baseline neurological status is known. This study evaluated whether incorporating baseline neurological status improves performance of a widely employed neurological outcome scale for quantifying arrest-attributable morbidity. ⋯ Incorporating change-in-CPC into criteria for "good" neurological outcome post-arrest yields discordant results from traditional approaches that consider discharge CPC only and increases face validity of reporting arrest-related morbidity.
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Observational Study
Association of antiepileptic drugs with resolution of epileptiform activity after cardiac arrest.
We tested the impact of antiepileptic drug (AED) administration on post-cardiac arrest epileptiform electroencephalographic (EEG) activity. ⋯ After cardiac arrest, the impact of AEDs may depend on the presence of continuous cortical background activity. These data serve to inform experimental work to better define the opportunities to improve neurologic care post-cardiac arrest.
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Whether time of day influences survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) remains controversial. We compared outcomes after OHCA between day and night and explored whether characteristics of pre-hospital advanced life support (ALS)-quality varied by time of day. ⋯ In contrast to previous studies, there was no significant difference in sustained ROSC rates and 30-day survival with favourable neurological outcome after OHCA between day and night in the city of Vienna. This is likely due to nearly identical high bystander CPR rates and identical ALS performance provided by EMS personnel irrespective of time of the day.