J Emerg Med
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Review
Literature-based recommendations for suicide assessment in the emergency department: a review.
Suicidal ideation and attempted suicide are important presenting complaints in the Emergency Department (ED). The Joint Commission established a National Patient Safety Goal that requires screening for suicidal ideation to identify patients at risk for suicide. ⋯ Although a brief screening of suicide risk in the ED does not have the sensitivity to accurately determine which patients are at highest risk of suicide after leaving the ED, patients at lowest risk may be identified. In these low-risk patients, psychiatric holds and real-time psychiatric consultation while in the ED may not be needed, facilitating more expeditious dispositions from the ED.
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Patients present to police, Emergency Medical Services, and the emergency department with aggressive behavior, altered sensorium, and a host of other signs that may include hyperthermia, "superhuman" strength, diaphoresis, and lack of willingness to yield to overwhelming force. A certain percentage of these individuals will go on to expire from a sudden cardiac arrest and death, despite optimal therapy. Traditionally, the forensic community would often classify these as "Excited Delirium" deaths. ⋯ Based upon available evidence, it is the consensus of an American College of Emergency Physicians Task Force that Excited Delirium Syndrome is a real syndrome with uncertain, likely multiple, etiologies.
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Second-generation antipsychotic medications, or "atypical antipsychotics," are now first-line therapy in the treatment of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, and are additionally being used in a wide array of other psychiatric and non-psychiatric conditions in both adults and children. Overdose is frequently reported to poison control centers. ⋯ Antipsychotic overdose produces a gamut of manifestations that affect multiple organ systems. Treatment is primarily supportive. Specific therapies for NMS, hypotension, and seizures are discussed.