Many emergency patients present with cardiac arrhythmias requiring emergency direct current countershock cardioversion (DCCV) as a part of their management. Almost all require sedation to facilitate the procedure. Propofol has been used for procedural sedation in Emergency Medicine since 1995. In 1996, in a review article in Anaesthesia, it was recommended as the drug which most closely approac...

STUDY OBJECTIVE Fasting time before procedural sedation and analgesia in a pediatric emergency department (ED) was recently reported to have no association with the incidence of adverse events. This study further investigates preprocedural fasting and adverse events. METHODS Data were analyzed from a prospectively generated database comprising consecutive sedation events from June 1996 to Mar...

Outside the OR, it has become increasingly common for nurses to administer procedural sedation. Now, with capnography, you can monitor patients' respiratory status more closely and accurately.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Procedural sedation and analgesia is frequently administered outside of the operating room in emergency departments (EDs) and ICUs. Evidence was sought concerning patients' safety in the ED. RECENT FINDINGS Procedural sedation, when administered in the ED by trained personnel, is safe. Extensive literature demonstrates that propofol, ketamine, midazalam, and fentanyl are app...