Robust and comprehensive studies now support specific management guidelines for patients presenting with different intracranial hemorrhages (ICH). From the Emergency Department perspective, the primary dilemmas involve specific blood pressure goals and whether seizure prophylaxis with phenytoin is necessary. The Brain Trauma Foundation provides an excellent summary of the current guidelines.1
Wound irrigation is arguably one of the most important steps in closing a laceration, because all lacerations should be considered to be contaminated. Irrigation is considered the foundation in preventing infection. A common way to cleanse a wound is to irrigate a wound using a 20 cc syringe, angiocatheter, and splash protector. To achieve 500 cc of irrigation, however, it would require 25 syringe refills! Is there a better, cost-effective alternative?
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Pelvic trauma frequently is associated with other injuries from the high force required to break the pelvis. Management is focused on stabilizing the pelvis and stopping the bleeding. Due to other injuries requiring emergent surgical stabilization, pelvic trauma is primarily managed surgically with pre-peritoneal packing and external fixation, followed by angioembolization for continued bleeding. Emergency physicians must quickly resuscitate patients while gathering vital information to direct the correct definitive bleeding control strategy. New endovascular techniques such as REBOA (Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta) may change future emergency department strategies and improve mortality in severe pelvic trauma.
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The Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) collaborative has teamed up with the ALiEM and CanadiEM teams to introduce the official PECARN visual decision rule aid for pediatric blunt head trauma! This has been a 6 month collaboration focused on bringing evidence-based research to the bedside in pediatric emergency medicine (EM).
When a patient is started on anticoagulant therapy, the purpose is to prevent clot formation or propagation. Anticoagulants can improve morbidity and mortality by maintaining cardiac stent patency, reducing the propagation of pulmonary emboli, or preventing formation of intra-cardiac thrombi.1,2 Unfortunately even after minor trauma, these medications can cause major problems. When a patient on clopidogrel is in a motor vehicle collision (MVC) or an elderly patient on warfarin falls out of their bed, the once life-improving therapy becomes potentially life-threatening. It is important for emergency care providers to maintain a high index of suspicion for life-threatening bleeds in all patients on anticoagulation following even minor injuries. The purpose of this discussion is to look beyond the intracranial hemorrhages (ICH) and to consider 5 other sources of bleeding that can occur in anticoagulated patients.
Welcome to the Trauma Module! After carefully reviewing all relevant posts from the top 50 sites of the Social Media Index the ALiEM AIR Team is proud to present the highest quality procedure content. Below we have listed our selection of the 21 highest quality blog posts within the past 12 months (as of September 2016) related to Trauma emergencies, curated and approved for residency training by the AIR Series Board. More specifically in this module, we identified 5 AIRs and 16 Honorable Mentions. We recommend programs give 7 hours (about 20 minutes per article) of III credit for this module.
Laceration repair and suturing are foundational skills for the Emergency Department. This pocket card serves as a quick reference guide for clinicians, and provides a much-needed update and design upgrade from the 2011 PV card on Sutures. This card covers suture/staple removal times, suture sizes, suture material characteristics, special laceration considerations, and suture techniques.