Der Anaesthesist
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Review
Ventilator autotriggering : An underestimated phenomenon in the determination of brain death.
Ventilator autotriggering (VAT) may induce uncertainty in diagnosing brain death because it may falsely suggest a central respiratory drive in brain-dead patients where no intrinsic respiratory efforts exist. Since the lack of international standardization of brain death criteria contributes to the loss of potential donor organs, it is important to be aware of this phenomenon, which is a not well-known confounder in the process of diagnosing brain death. ⋯ The phenomenon of VAT is inconsistently addressed in the national guidelines and recommendations for the determination of brain death and should, therefore, be included in future harmonized brain death codes. Detection and correction of VAT should be implemented as early as possible by a structured procedure. Additional training and information on this phenomenon should be made available to the entire intensive care unit staff.
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Trauma-related deaths are not only a relevant medical problem but also a socioeconomic one. The care of a polytraumatized patient is one of the less commonly occurring missions in the rescue and emergency medical services. The aim of this article is to compare the similarities and differences between different course concepts and guidelines in the treatment of trauma-related cardiac arrests (TCA) and to filter out the main focus of each concept. Because of the various approaches in the treatment of polytraumatized patients, there are decisive differences between trauma-related cardiac arrests and cardiac arrests from other causes.