Organophosphate poisoning is characterised for the most part, by acute incidents. Management is by way of first aid (in mild poisoning) and use of atropine with or without the oximes, (in moderate to severe poisoning). Of late, it has become apparent that subchronic and chronic organophosphate poisoning are a common manifestation. This review paper summarises this triphasic nature of organophos...

The first aids to burned patients are fundamental for the evolution of the disease and the success of the next medical care in a Burns Center. In our 30-years experience, we can reassume that they must be provided to limit the cause of thermal damage, to evaluate and correct eventual respiratory or cardiovascular disorders, to find out the possible damage to different organs and the primary car...

have undertaken the task of making our communities healthy places in which to live. In addition there is a plenum of information which will help the person in attending to his own personal health and that of his family, including a chapter on first aid and another on maternal care. A general knowledge of common disease characteristics will help the student to recognize these conditions and take...

The concept of "psychiatric first aid" or early treatment psychiatry is not new. Such services have existed, in some measure, in various medical settings: general hospitals, private psychiatric practice, and psychiatric receiving hospitals. What is relatively new, however, is the idea of developing a service program with early treatment or immediate care as its central focus; in other words, to...

BACKGROUND Psychological reactions to terror attacks have been documented as ranging from no symptoms to transient behavioural symptoms to more serious posttraumatic stress. SOURCES OF DATA A review of representative studies is presented, with a critical analysis of the salient points of the various psychological intervention strategies for terrorist attacks. AREAS OF AGREEMENT Common aspec...

The Targeted Agenda Program (TAP) has been introduced for the first time during the 15th World Congress on Disaster and Emergency Medicine (15WCDEM) in Amsterdam in 2007 to stimulate interaction between the participants before, during and after the congress. A TAP process consists of 11 steps, starting with defining a relevant issue and ending with the publication of a TAP report based on exper...

The sudden onset of war results in considerable psychological challenges as well as physical danger for populations under attack. While all civilian-directed violence carries common elements of fear and threat, unexpected consequences of war often require coping strategies to be adaptive, flexible, and effective. The Hezbollah-Israel confrontation of 2006 created such unanticipated consequences...

Non-fatal injuries have a significant impact on disability, productivity, and economic cost, and first-aid can play an important role in improving non-fatal injury outcomes. Data collected from a census conducted as part of a drowning prevention project in Bangladesh was used to quantify the impact of first-aid provided by trained and untrained providers on non-fatal injuries. The census covere...

BACKGROUND Emergency medical communication centres (EMCCs) dispatch and allocate ambulance resources, and provide first-aid guidance to on-scene bystanders. We aimed to 1) evaluate whether dispatcher guidance improved bystander first aid in trauma, and 2) to evaluate whether dispatchers and on-scene emergency medical services (EMS) crews identified the same first aid measures as indicated. ME...