Pulseless Electrical Activity

By Dr Peter Kas | 21/02/2018 |

Pulseless Electrical Activity(PEA) occurs in about 30% of cardiac arrest cases. Given that it’s not a shockable rhythm, it has a very poor prognosis, especially when associated with acute myocardial Infarction(MI)(1). More recently, the term pseudo-PEA, is used for those patients where we can’t find an output by feeling for a pulse, but there may in fact be…

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Hypothermia

By Dr Peter Kas | 20/11/2017 |

Hypothermia is defined as any core temperature < 35 degrees Celsius Today I wanted to look at a case and then discuss the controversies associated with the Management of Hypothermia. CASE: An 87 year old woman is brought to your emergency department. She has been found unconscious in the street by a passer by. She…

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Hypothermia In Cardiac Arrest In Children

By Dr Peter Kas | 30/04/2015 |

Hot of the press this week, a study in the NEJM (25th April 2015) by Moler et al. ‘Hypothermia in Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest in Children’.  We know that hypothermia works in adults and more recently studies showed that we don’t need to cool patients to extremely low temperatures. In fact it is important to…

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