Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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A short cut review was carried out to establish whether the tongue blade test is useful in the clinical assessment of patients with mandibular trauma. Altogether 269 papers were found using the reported search, of which two presented the best evidence to answer the clinical question. The author, date and country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, results and study weaknesses of these best papers are tabulated. A clinical bottom line is stated.
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One of the most important limitations of standard pulse oximeters is the inability to detect changes in respiratory rate until oxygenation is affected. This study sought to determine if analysis of the plethysmogram by wavelet transforms would enable the determination of changes in respiratory rate at an earlier stage. ⋯ Wavelet transforms permit the accurate determination of respiratory rate by a standard pulse oximeter.
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To determine whether doctors working in emergency departments are aware which of the common conditions seen have driving restrictions associated with them and whether they routinely advise patients of these restrictions. ⋯ Doctors working in emergency departments are aware of conditions that lead to an inpatient admission that have driving restrictions. However, knowledge of conditions where patients are likely to be discharged was not as complete and advice was less likely to be given to patients. Emergency department doctors need to be more aware of restrictions that apply to conditions where patients are to be discharged.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Non-invasive ventilation in acute respiratory failure: a randomised comparison of continuous positive airway pressure and bi-level positive airway pressure.
To determine whether there is a difference in required duration of non-invasive ventilation between continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) and bi-level positive airway pressure (BiPAP) in the treatment of a heterogeneous group of emergency department (ED) patients suffering acute respiratory failure and the subgroup of patients with acute pulmonary oedema (APO). Secondary objectives were to compare complications, failure rate, disposition, length of stay parameters, and mortality between the treatments. ⋯ These results suggest that there is no significant difference in the duration of non-invasive ventilation treatment between CPAP and BiPAP when used for the treatment of acute respiratory failure in the ED. There was also no significant difference between the groups in secondary end points.