Hypocalcaemia can life threatening, due to arrhythmias and seizures.
Severity – Adjusted Calcium (Ca)
- Mild: >1.9mmol/l
- Severe: ≤1.9mmol/l OR Symptomatic
Hypocalcaemia can life threatening, due to arrhythmias and seizures.
Severity – Adjusted Calcium (Ca)
Hyponatraema is a common finding, especially within our elderly population. However, its significance is is not a simple numbers game, and needs senior input. Prior to treatment the following need to be considered and balanced.
HHS (A.K.A. HONK) is a diabetic emergency, but unlike DKA we don’t always think about it.
Patients with HHS are often elderly with multiple co-morbidities, and they are always very sick.
Flu season has arrived, and we need to be thinking about who to test and who to treat. Full guide HERE But don’t forget MERS!!
Each year 1:15 of the adult population will seek medical help for Lower Back Pain, that is 2.6 million patients in the UK. Most Lower Back Pain is not serious and will revolve within 8 weeks, with analgesia and self physio.
However, this is not the case for some. This may be due to serious underlying pathology ‘RED Flags‘, or psychological factors that indicate chronicity ‘Yellow Flags‘.
Read moreWe are frequently asked to check the lactate on Venous Blood Gases (VBG’s), by the nursing staff. However, remember to look at the first result (pH) it is the most important.
Acidosis: Unless you have a good reason (e.g. you know its due to DKA) you should be investigating and performing an Arterial Blood Gas (ABG)
We all recognise the importance of ensuring patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) get their medication, but..
We will need to work out what alternative routes we could use, for example dispensable via NG or patches, and what dose. For an ED clinical it is most likely beyond us and we need help! However, that may be extremely difficult to get especially Out of Hours
Excellent website that can give you options – select the patients normal regime (initially just one line but you can add as many as needed) and press calculate. It gives you a dispensable and patch dose, which can help the discussion with pharmacy about where we can get it