Intra-arrest Factors Patients whose cardiopulmonary arrest was unwit­nessed had an initial resuscitation rate of 27.6 percent but very poor eventual survival (1.1 percent) when compared to patients whose cardiopulmonary arrests were witnessed (13.0 percent) (p<.01) (Table 2). The only eventual survivor among the unwitnessed group was transferred to a chronic care facility 27 days following [...]

Continue reading " Early Predictors of Mortality for Hospitalized Patients Suffering Cardiopulmonary Arrest: RESULTS part 2 "

Of the 387 CPR records reviewed, 326 patients were identified as having experienced one or more true cardiopulmonary arrests. In the same period, there were 1,397 adult deaths in the hospital excluding the ED and OR. The ACLS was, therefore, provided for 326 patients minus the 30 survivors resulting in a selection ratio of 296/1,397 [...]

Continue reading " Early Predictors of Mortality for Hospitalized Patients Suffering Cardiopulmonary Arrest: RESULTS "

The Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg is a 1,100 bed tertiary care hospital with a centralized CPR team based in MICU. All CPR is carried out by ACLS certified Residents or Intensive Care Fellows. Other team members include one Unit Assistant who performs CCCM, a MICU nurse who administers medications, a respiratory technologist and a [...]

Continue reading " Early Predictors of Mortality for Hospitalized Patients Suffering Cardiopulmonary Arrest: PATIENTS AND METHODS "

Since modern cardiopulmonary resuscitation was first described by Kouwenhoven et al, it has achieved wide application as a standardized, team based and highly organized medical intervention both in and out of hospital. Successful resuscitation from cardiopulmonary arrest performed in Emergency De­partments can be expected in 21 to 33 percent of cases using ACLS techniques. Among [...]

Continue reading " Early Predictors of Mortality for Hospitalized Patients Suffering Cardiopulmonary Arrest "

The most important finding of our study was that among our patients admitted to a respiratory rehabil­itation unit with COPD and who were not hypoxemic while awake, (ie, whose baseline awake Sa02 is >=89 percent), the occurrence of sustained nocturnal hy­poxemia was most closely related to the presence of daytime hypercapnia. Secondly, our study has [...]

Continue reading " Daytime Hypercapnia in the Development of Nocturnal Hypoxemia in COPD: DISCUSSION "

Table 1 indicates that the original 48 patients spanned a broad spectrum of pulmonary function and arterial blood gas derangements. In addition, there was a significant drop from baseline awake Sa02 to mean nocturnal Sa02 (mean±SD, 92.6±3.8 vs regression analysis (r = 0.34, p<0.02), the impact of FEVx on mean nocturnal Sa02 is lost when [...]

Continue reading " Daytime Hypercapnia in the Development of Nocturnal Hypoxemia in COPD: RESULTS "

Model Development Subjects: The subjects consisted of 48 consecutive patients with COPD admitted to a chronic respiratory unit for rehabilitation. All were previous smokers and had a forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV^forced vital capacity (FVC) of <70 percent. None had a history of atopy or asthma nor of any other respiratory disease. All [...]

Continue reading " Daytime Hypercapnia in the Development of Nocturnal Hypoxemia in COPD: METHODS "