BACKGROUND A study was undertaken to test the hypothesis that a particular inhaled beta agonist, fenoterol, increases the incidence of severe life threatening asthma. METHODS A retrospective cohort was assembled comprising 655 patients with asthma aged 15-55 years who attended a single Auckland hospital for acute asthma between 1 January 1986 and 31 December 1987 (the "index event"). Patients...

After an accident, people often report that it felt a lot longer than it actually could have been in real time. Time seemed to slow down during the event. We tried to conduct a safe experiment in our laboratory to simulate a dangerous situation. We had participants look at a screen on which circles either moved on a collision course toward the participant or moved away from the participant. At ...

OBJECTIVE: To emphasize the importance of decreasing the response time by a trained target responder to increase the survival rate among athletes experiencing sudden cardiac arrest at an athletic event. BACKGROUND: Death due to sudden cardiac arrest that is witnessed is preventable in many cases. However, most people who experience this condition die because of a prolonged response time from on...

Foreign body aspiration (FBA) is a potentially life-threatening event, more common in children than in adults. In the year 2001 in Italy, inhaled FB accounted for 30 deaths from respiratory obstruction in children [1]. The signs and symptoms of FBA vary according to the age of the subject, the type of object aspirated, the location of the object, and the elapsed time since the event. The remova...

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of a threatening stimulus in human adults in a temporal bisection task. In Experiment 1, for two anchor duration conditions (400/800 vs. 800/1600 ms), the participants completed trials in which the probe duration was followed by an aversive stimulus or a nonaversive stimulus. The results showed that the duration was judged longer when the...

BACKGROUND Approximately 150 species of Lepidoptera have been described as causing damage to human skin. One of these species is the pine processionary caterpillar, which is responsible for dermatitis, contact urticaria, ocular lesions and rarely respiratory signs and anaphylactic reactions through IgE-mediated or non-IgE-mediated mechanisms. We report a pediatric case of severe orofacial edema...

Aortic dissection is a rare and a life threatening event. Classically, aortic dissection presents as sudden, severe chest, back or abdominal pain that is characterized as ripping or tearing in nature. However, a timely diagnosis can be elusive in the event of an atypical presentation. So, a high index of clinical suspicion is mandatory for the accurate and rapid diagnosis of aortic dissection. ...

Post traumatic stress disorder is a psychiatric disease that is usually precipitated by life threatening stressors. Myocardial infarction, especially in the young can count as one such event. The development of post traumatic stress after a coronary event not only adversely effects psychiatric health, but leads to increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. There is increasing evidence th...

OBJECTIVES To determine how often the pediatric otolaryngology service is involved in the initial care of infants with an apparent life-threatening event (ALTE), to assess the usefulness of bronchoscopy and laryngoscopy in diagnosing the underlying etiology, and to describe the long-term airway outcomes and whether these patients were seen by the pediatric otolaryngology service over a 5-year f...