It seems like a simple enough question: How do you diagnose and treat uncomplicated UTIs in older adults? The answer is: It depends. Part 1 of this post will discuss diagnosis of UTIs in this population, and part 2 will address treatment.
A patient actively vomiting is wheeled into your ED. Within minutes IV access is obtained, and your nurse asks what tests and medicines are wanted. A liter of normal saline, ondansetron, and an H2 blocker are easy, but what labs to order? I think we can all agree on a metabolic profile to look at electrolytes and liver function tests, and a lipase level to assess for pancreatitis. But what about an amylase level?
Originally from Clinical Monster blog
A 75 year old woman is found to have pneumonia. With a CURB-65 of 3 and a PORT score of 95, she is correctly treated her for community acquired pneumonia with Ceftriaxone and Azithromycin, and admitted. Unfortunately, the admitting service points out that no blood cultures were drawn! What is the evidence for this?
Originally from Clinical Monster blog
Should we treat a cyclobenzaprine (Flexeril) overdose similar to a tricyclic antidepressant (TCA) overdose? With the only difference between the commonly prescribed muscle relaxant, cyclobenzaprine, and the TCA amitriptyline consisting of a single double bond, should the emergency provider be concerned for life threatening arrhythmias in cyclobenzaprine overdose?
Kline et al developed a clinical decision tool based on parameters that could be obtained from a brief initial assessment to reasonably exclude the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism (PE) without the use of D-dimer in order to prevent unnecessary cost and the use of medical resources. 1 Many of us have used the Pulmonary Embolism Rule-out Criteria (PERC) rule by now, but we should be clear on what it includes. Are we using it appropriately?
Patients who leave the emergency department against medical advice (AMA) are at an increased risk of having a bad medical outcome, and can be a source of significant medicolegal risk to providers. Earlier we reviewed eight elements to address when signing a patient out AMA. There are two common myths regarding patients who leave AMA that can complicate an already difficult situation.
After getting many requests for more PV cards, we are excited to launch 13 new topics located in the Cardiovascular folder of the Emergency Medicine: PV Cards collection on