Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
-
Clinical Trial
Cardiovascular and physiologic effects of conducted electrical weapon discharge in resting adults.
The TASER is a conducted electrical weapon (CEW) that has been used on people in custody. Individuals occasionally die unexpectedly while in custody, proximal to the application of a CEW. In this study, the authors sought to examine the effects of CEW application in resting adult volunteers to determine if there was evidence of induced electrical dysrhythmia or direct cellular damage that would indicate a causal relationship between application of the device and in-custody death. ⋯ In this resting adult population, the TASER X26 CEW did not affect the recordable cardiac electrical activity within a 24-hour period following a standard five-second application. The authors were unable to detect any induced electrical dysrhythmias or significant direct cardiac cellular damage that may be related to sudden and unexpected death proximal to CEW exposure. Additionally, no evidence of dangerous hyperkalemia or induced acidosis was found. Further study in the area of the in-custody death phenomenon to better understand its causes is recommended.
-
Older patients may visit the emergency department (ED) when their illness affects their function. ⋯ Functional decline is common in older ED patients and contributes to ED visits in older patients; its role in admission is unclear.
-
Periodic surveys of research directors (RDs) in emergency medicine (EM) are useful to assess the specialty's development and evolution of the RD role. ⋯ Research productivity of EM residency programs is associated with the presence of dedicated research faculty and staff and with reduced clinical demands for research faculty. Despite perceiving deficiencies in important resources, most RDs are professionally satisfied.
-
Pediatric patients often require sedation for diagnostic procedures such as magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography scanning. In October 2002, a dedicated sedation service was started at a tertiary care pediatric facility as a joint venture between pediatric emergency medicine and pediatric critical care medicine. Before this service, sedation was provided by the department of radiology by using a standard protocol, with high-risk patients and failed sedations referred for general anesthesia. ⋯ The implementation of a dedicated pediatric-sedation service resulted in fewer incomplete studies related to inadequate sedation, in fewer canceled studies secondary to patient illness, in fewer referrals for general anesthesia, and in fewer recorded instances of sedation-associated hypoxia. These findings have important implications in terms of patient safety and resource utilization.