On July 7, 2023, at 1:21 am, a fire was declared in a retirement home in Milan, Italy. The number of casualties (n = 87) according to the Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment (START) triage system was ...categorized as 65 green, 14 yellow, 2 red, and 6 black; 75% were women, and the mean age was 85.1 years (± 9). Most patients were unable to walk. A total of 30 basic life support (BLS) ambulances, 3 advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) teams on fast cars, 2 buses, and 1 coordination team were deployed. A scoop and run approach was adopted with patients being transported to 15 health care facilities. The event was terminated at 5:43 am. Though the local mass casualty incident (MCI) response plan was correctly applied, the evacuation of the building was difficult due to the age and comorbidities of the patients. START failed to correctly identify patients categorized as minor. Communication problems arose on site that led to the late evacuation of critical patients.
Scopo: valutare i benefici di un nuovo sistema per il trasporto del paziente critico. Il sistema è basato sull’utilizzo di una tavola radio compati- bile abbinata ad un dispositivo per ...l’alloggiamento delle apparecchiature elettromedicali che viene agganciato alla tavola sopra le gambe del paziente.
Hygienic care practices may represent a source of stress for intensive care patients.
To identify the hygienic care practices more involved in changes of vital signs and the association to the level ...of sedation.
Prospective observational study of eleven patients admitted to a general intensive care unit, observed for three consecutive hygiene care morning practices. A protocol for standardizing hygiene practices was adopted. Vital signs were recorded on an electronic database at the beginning of each of the following phase: before the start of hygiene, of mouth cleaning, of sponge bath, positioning of bedpan, first and second side rotation, change of position of endotracheal tube and replacement of tapes, and at the end of hygiene.
29 events of hygiene practices were observed in the 11 patients included in the study (the measurements of three events were discarded). Significant vital signs alterations were induced mainly by the rotation and change of position of the orotracheal tube. Significant correlations were observed between changes in Heart Rate and Bispectral Index (BIS) (coefficient of 0.345; P: 0.329), between BIS and systolic arterial blood pressure (0.774, P: 0.009), BIS and Tidal Volume (-0.569, P: 0.086), and BIS and Respiratory Rate (0.707, P: 0.022).
The hygienic care in intensive care patients may negatively impact on vital signs. Some nursing manoeuvres cause variations of the vital signs also related to changes in the state of consciousness caused by possible defects or excesses of sedation. The sedation level, during hygienic care, should be constantly monitored.
Hygiene care in critical patients may alter vital signs. Aim of this paper is to measure vital signs and their modifications in critical patients during hygiene care and measure differences with pre ...and post hygiene values.
Vital signs of 6 patients two hours before, during and 90 minutes after hygienic care were measured.
During and 2 hours after the end of hygiene a modification of vital signs was observed compared to basic values (mean values during/90 min after, compared to baseline): heart rate +11.20%/ +1.48; systolic blood pressure +22.68%/+1.56; arterial capillary saturimetry -4.31/+0.27, Respiratory frequency +8.10/+2.66, tidal volume +4,04/-7,51, CO2 min/vol +5,34/- 22.33, bladder temperature -0.85/-0.60.
Hygiene care in critical care patients may significantly alter vital signs. Therefore a strict haemodinamic and respiratory monitoring is warranted as well as protocols for the management of sedation and of vasoactive support.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the need for additional safe, effective, and affordable vaccines gave new impetus into development of vaccine genetic platforms. Here we report the findings from the phase ...1, first-in-human, dose-escalation study of COVID-eVax, a DNA vaccine encoding the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Sixty-eight healthy adults received two doses of 0.5, 1, or 2 mg 28 days apart, or a single 2-mg dose, via intramuscular injection followed by electroporation, and they were monitored for 6 months. All participants completed the primary safety and immunogenicity assessments after 8 weeks. COVID-eVax was well tolerated, with mainly mild to moderate solicited adverse events (tenderness, pain, bruising, headache, and malaise/fatigue), less frequent after the second dose, and it induced an immune response (binding antibodies and/or T cells) at all prime-boost doses tested in up to 90% of the volunteers at the highest dose. However, the vaccine did not induce neutralizing antibodies, while particularly relevant was the T cell-mediated immunity, with a robust Th1 response. This T cell-skewed immunological response adds significant information to the DNA vaccine platform and should be assessed in further studies for its protective capacity and potential usefulness also in other therapeutic areas, such as oncology.
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Aurisicchio et al. report the findings from the first-in-human trial on the safety and immunogenicity of COVID-eVax, a DNA vaccine against COVID-19. COVID-eVax was well tolerated and induced a particularly relevant T cell-skewed response that represents a significant advance to DNA vaccines development, useful also in other therapeutic areas.
