RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: In Central Europe, ambulances for patients suffering from pain caused by nonlife-threatening trauma, such as hip fractures are staffed by medical personnel (medics) without physicians. Thus, there is an urgent need for nonpharmacological interventions that can be applied during the transport by basic life-support (BLS) medical personnel. METHODS: In all, 101 patients were screened for participation in this randomized placebo-controlled double-blind study, and randomly assigned to two groups (verum and sham transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation [TENS]). First, medic A recorded all baseline parameters and measurements, then medic B performed TENS in absence of medic A. At the end of transportation, medic A performed data collection. Each patient was asked to grade his/her pain and anxiety level on visual analog scales (VAS, 0 to 100 mm). RESULTS: From 101 screened patients fulfilling the entry criteria, 29 declined consent and 9 had to be excluded from the analysis because of their final diagnosis. Therefore, the data from 30 patients (group 1, verum TENS) as well as from 33 patients (group 2 [control], sham TENS) were analyzed. No significant differences in potentially influencing factors were found before treatment. Pain scores upon arrival at the hospital differed significantly between group 1 and group 2 (p < 0.01). In group 1, pain reduction was observed between departure from the site of emergency and arrival at the hospital (VAS: 89 +/- 9 to 59 +/- 6 mm), whereas pain scores remained nearly unchanged in group 2 (VAS: 86 +/- 12 to 79 +/- 11 mm). CONCLUSION: Our findings show that TENS is a valuable and fast-acting pain treatment under the difficult circumstances of "out-of-hospital rescue". Because of its lack of side effects, it could also be a valuable tool in the hospital.
Asunto(s)
Ambulancias , Auxiliares de Urgencia , Fracturas de Cadera/terapia , Dolor/prevención & control , Estimulación Eléctrica Transcutánea del Nervio , Anciano , Anciano de 80 o más Años , Análisis de Varianza , Método Doble Ciego , Servicios Médicos de Urgencia , Femenino , Humanos , MasculinoRESUMEN
UNLABELLED: Victims of minor trauma transported by paramedic-based rescue systems are usually monitored with pulse oximetry. Under the difficult surroundings of prehospital trauma care, pulse oximeters show considerable periods of malfunction. We tested the hypothesis that capnography is a good, easy to use tool for monitoring in nonintubated trauma victims. Seventy nonintubated trauma victims were included in this study. Vital variables and number and time of malfunctions were sampled for oximeter and capnometer recordings. Total number of alerts (63 versus 10), number of alerts per patient (3.3 [1.9] versus 0.3 [0.9]) (mean [SD]), total time of malfunction (191.5 [216.7] s versus 11.8 [40.2] s), time of malfunction per alarm (58.3 [71.4] s versus 5.5 [14.6] s), and the percentage of malfunction time during transport (13.2% [15.3%] versus 0.8% [2.8%]) differed significantly (P < 0.01) between oximetry and capnography. Although pulse oximetry is a standard method of monitoring in emergency care, we found capnography to be helpful as a monitoring device. We consequently recommend the use of capnography on transport as an additional monitoring tool to reduce periods lacking supervision of the vital variables. IMPLICATIONS: Capnography is a useful tool to improve respiratory monitoring in nonintubated trauma victims on emergency transport and an easy to use supplement to pulse oximetry.