European journal of emergency medicine : official journal of the European Society for Emergency Medicine
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In January 1991, an image transfer unit was developed and installed in the neurosurgical department of the University in Mainz. The system provides an image transfer of patient data via fibreoptic cable networks (VBN), ISDN, and public telephone line. In the following 4 years, 432 consultations were recorded. ⋯ In these rural medical departments, teleconsultation improves the care of daily routine neurosurgical cases, as well as in emergency cases. There is also a decrease of costs due to teleconsultation. The image transfer via simple public telephone line was sufficient.
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In an open study relating psychiatric emergencies in a general hospital, the authors observe that only in 30% of cases does the reason for emergency referral of patients by their general practitioner involve the concept of danger. In view of the results of this study, it would seem beneficial, if one wishes to reduce the number of psychiatric admissions, to improve the training of general practitioners in general psychiatry and in the treatment of mood disorders in particular.
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Comparative Study
Patients with psychiatric emergencies transported by an ambulance in an urban region.
This paper studies the use of an ambulance service in the case of psychiatric emergency referrals. A cross-sectional design was used to compare the patients brought in by an ambulance with all other psychiatric emergency referrals. ⋯ However, for another group of referrals the ambulance is used for other reasons. The possibility of using alternative social services in these cases are discussed.
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Review Case Reports
Traumatic blunt carotid injury: clinical experience and review of the literature.
To evaluate the symptoms, the associated lesions, the treatment and the outcome of patients with blunt carotid injury (BCI), we reviewed the records of all patients admitted to our intensive care unit with head trauma between May 1991 and May 1995. A patient's assessment included the commonly used severity scores and cranial computed tomography (CT). Other diagnostic investigations were performed according to the clinical setting. ⋯ In every patient the radiologic investigations demonstrated a thrombotic obstruction of the internal carotid artery (ICA), associated with an intimal dissection in two cases. Three patients were discharged with only minor neurologic symptoms. The fourth patient was referred to our ICU after the development of a massive hemispheric infarction, and died 3 days after admission.