Forwarded for Omaha: TV Doctors are incompetent when dealing with epileptics

[elfs]

The Epilepsy Foundation of America reviewed scenes from 59 television episodes from "Grey's Anatomy," "House, M.D.," and "Private Practice" and the last five seasons of "ER" in which seizures were portrayed. The conclusion? TV doctors depict first aid practices that are incompetent and dangerous:

The study found that inappropriate practices, including holding the person down, trying to stop involuntary movements or putting something in the person's mouth, occurred in 25 cases, nearly 46 percent of the time. First aid management was shown appropriately in 17 seizures, or about 29 percent of the time. Appropriateness of first aid could not be determined in 15 incidents of seizures, or 25 percent.

I mean, come on, how hard can this be? If the victim is standing up when the seziure happens, guide him to the floor. Put a pillow or folded-up jacket under the head to keep him from hitting it on the ground and injuring his head, neck, or airway during involuntary movements. If you don't know the victim, dial 911 (or the appropriate code for your country) and clear the area around the victim to keep him and bystanders from interacting.

(HT to anonymous.)

Comments

[elfs.livejournal.com]

A surprisingly good reference is Cracked Magazine's Six Life Saving Techniques from Movies that can Kill You (http://www.cracked.com/article/18363_6-life-saving-techniques-from-movies-that-can-kill-you_p2):

It's true that a seizure victim's jaw clenches during a seizure, and that could potentially result in some damage to the tongue, but all of that is small potatoes compared to the injury inflicted by pinning the person down and prying their mouths open to shove something between their teeth.

The human jaw is He-Man strong, and when it involuntarily shuts, it can and fucking should remain that way. Trying to force it open can easily cause mechanical damage to the teeth, the gums, the tongue or your own fingers. Worse yet, having a person bite down on something during a seizure can potentially block their airway and suffocate them, which you may remember as the thing you were trying to prevent in the first place.

Really, unless you are a trained EMT the only thing you should do is protect the victim's head and wait for the ambulance to arrive.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

More good mythbusting! ^_^

And that site is also teh awesum! Thanks for posting the link.

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

Nice article.

#1. It's not the bullet that causes sepsis, it's the clothing carried in by the bullet. If the bleeding has stopped, that's good enough for survival and there's time to mungle with infection later.

#2. Tourniquets are battlefield medicine for shattered limbs. They have their place in military first aid, and in fact one of the students at Virginia Tech saved his own life with an improvised tourniquet made of an electrical cord, but laypersons should avoid their use. By contrast however, the French teach tourniquets in basic first aid.

#3. Beaten to death already.

#4. Yes! Yes! Yes! This is one of my biggest pet peeves, and one I use to introduce a dose of real world to students who need first aid training for gunshot wounds.

#5. Defibrillators are for stopping V-tac and V-fib. We gloss over this in most CPR training because laypersons tend to freak if they get the erroneous idea that they are doing something that 'stops' the heart. I've been known to explain it to geeks as "CTRL-ALT-DEL" for the heart. ACLS is a witch's brew of defibrillation and various medications, some of which can restart flatline.

#6. The world needs more CPR, not less, however it is a buy-time-for-ACLS move, not a substitute for ACLS. Real world CPR for survivable cardiac events is on the order of 30%. According to some of the Tactical Combat Casualty Care materials I've read, CPR for trauma that stops the heart is more like 1/2 of 1%. And anyone who does CPR on a patient for a bed is doing them absolutely no good. Cf. Michael Jackson.

The comments on the post are priceless FAIL. You can't pay to see stuff this stupid.