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Introduction: Many patients present to the Emergency Department (ED) complaining of headache and a significant proportion of these visits would result in hospital admissions. This study analyses the demographics, presentation, work-up, reasons for admission, diagnoses and outcomes of patients admitted with the chief complaint of headache – to identify possible ways of reducing such admissions. Materials and Methods: A retrospective analysis was done of the electronic medical records/discharge summaries of all adult patients admitted during a 1-year period from January to December 2006 with the diagnosis of primary headaches or secondary headaches not related to trauma, intracranial infection, inflammation, mass lesion, raised intra- cranial pressure or a serious systemic illness from the ED of the National University Hospital of Singapore. Results: One thousand two hundred and seventy-six patients presented to the adult ED with primary headaches or secondary headaches not related to serious conditions in 2006. This represented 2% of the ED attendances in the period. Two hundred and twenty-three patients were admitted for various reasons – diagnostic uncertainty: 110 (49%), pain control: 73 (33%), social/patient request: 60 (27%) and others: 4 (2%). Sixty-six per cent of the patients had either computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance (MR) head imaging. Eighteen patients (8%) were eventually diagnosed with a “potentially serious” diagnosis (intracranial haemorrhage, brain metastasis, stroke, meningitis, cerebral inflammation, cysticercosis, cervical osteomyelitis, hydrocephalus, seizure and malignant hypertension). Conclusion: Specific strate- gies addressing the various reasons for admission including physician training, use of evaluation protocols, imaging to exclude secondary pathology, a longer duration of treatment and evaluation in the ED, effective pain control and patient education may help reduce headache admissions. Key words: Analgesia, Imaging, Lumbar puncture

Telemedicine is an invaluable tool that enables hospitals without 24-h onsite neurology service to offer emergency thrombolysis to eligible stroke patients, who otherwise will not be able to benefit from this therapy.

ObjectiveTo compare resuscitation outcomes before and after switching from manual cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to load-distributing band (LDB) CPR in a multi-center Emergency Departments (ED) trial.MethodsThis is a phased, prospective cohort evaluation with intention-to-treat analysis of adults with non-traumatic cardiac arrest. The intervention is change in the system from manual CPR to LDB-CPR at two Urban EDs. The main outcome measure is survival to hospital discharge, with secondary outcome measures of return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC), survival to hospital admission and neurological outcome at discharge.ResultsA total of 1,011 patients were included in the study, with 459 in the manual CPR phase (January 01, 2004, to August 24, 2007) and 552 patients in the LDB-CPR phase (August 16, 2007, to December 31, 2009). In the LDB phase, the LDB device was applied in 454 patients (82.3%). Patients in the manual CPR and LDB-CPR phases were comparable for mean age, gender and ethnicity. Rates for ROSC were comparable with LDB-CPR (manual 22.4% vs. LDB 35.3%; adjusted odds ratio [OR], 1.07; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.63-1.83). Survival to hospital admission was increased, Manual 14.2% vs. LDB 19.7%; adjusted OR, 2.50; 95% CI, 1.05-6.00. Survival to hospital discharge was increased Manual 1.3% vs. LDB 3.3%; adjusted OR, 3.99; 95% CI, 1.06-15.02. The number of survivors with Cerebral Performance Category 1 (good) (Manual 1 vs. LDB 12, p < 0.01) and Overall Performance Category 1 (good) (Manual 1 vs. LDB 10, p < 0.01) was also increased. The Number Needed to Treat (NNT) for 1 survivor was 52 (95% CI, 26-1000).ConclusionA resuscitation strategy using LDB-CPR in an ED environment was associated with improved survival to admission and discharge in adults with non-traumatic cardiac arrest.