ICU

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Well organised against EHEC

In late May, a particularly aggressive and new strain of enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) posed an enormous challenge for northern German hospitals. In Hamburg, the focus of the epidemic, more than 1,000 people fell ill, about 180 of them seriously, after getting into contact with the bacterium. Report: Meike Lerner

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Treatment options for atrial fibrillation to prevent a stroke

Neurocardiology – especially atrial fibrillation (AF) – was the key topic during a press conference held during the 55th Annual Congress of the Germany Society for Clinical Neurophysiology and Functional Imaging (DGKN) this March. For good reason: Worldwide, there are around six million AF sufferers -- and it is one of the most common causes of stroke because this cardiac irregularity can…

Critical care outside hospital across UK

The critical care expertise available before a severely injured person can be admitted to hospital is “incomplete, unpredictable, and inconsistent,” shows research published online in Emergency Medicine Journal. Ambulance services are often reliant on volunteer doctors with variable levels of expertise and the availability of specialist doctors is patchy, particularly over evenings or…

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Easy breathe - new tools for prolonged lung support

Often a life-saving intervention, mechanical ventilation also has some serious drawbacks: the need for sedation, the risk of ventilator associated pneumonia, intubation or tracheostomy related complications. In 1972, Donald Hill from Pacific Medical Centre, Los Angeles, reported the first successful long-term mechanical lung assist device with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).

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POCT brings values

Bedside testing of parameters has been introduced in clinical practice much earlier than laboratory testing: In past centuries, not only were temperature or pulse rate taken at the point of care (POC), but also qualitative blood or urine analysis were performed right next to a patient’s bed

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Contec - bringing innovation to patient monitoring devices

While Contec’s broad range covers 13 product categories, the accent over the past year has been on enhancing patient-centred devices with fresh features developed by the firm’s research & development team. For example, while the typical screen size for patient monitors is 12-inches, Contec recently introduce models that both increase and reduce that size in response to customer demand.

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Europe's inconsistent use of device therapy in the prevention of sudden cardiac death

Even though the use of implantable devices for the treatment of heart failure and heart rhythm disturbances has increased enormously in Europe in recent years, there still remain large differences between countries. Indeed, a report last year in the European Journal of Heart Failure found that there is an underuse of devices in many of the European countries surveyed.(1) This is especially so in…

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No more machines!

For many ICU patients, entering the Kloster Grafschaft, in Schmallenberg, Germany, a hospital specialised in pneumology and allergology, is a last resort. On average, they have been in an ICU for seven weeks and have failed three attempts to be weaned from the ventilator. They have been deemed ‘unweanable’.

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