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Biomedical subjects

E Letovsky

Publications and source records attributed to E Letovsky.

4 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1996

Initiating thrombolytic therapy for acute myocardial infarction: whose job is it anyway?

Although thrombolytic therapy has clearly become the standard of care for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), its delivery in Canada continues to be extremely variable. Significant unnecessary delays in the initiation of this treatment still occur in many hospitals and constitute the most common avoidable cause of death in patients with AMI. The authors agree with the statement by representatives of the member organizations of the Emergency Cardiac Care Coalition (see pages 483 to 487 of this issue) that emergency service providers must get patients to hospital sooner and that all eligible patients should receive thrombolytic therapy within 30 minutes of their arrival at hospital. This objective requires that thrombolytic therapy be initiated by emergency physicians and be supported by well-established guidelines for its use.

Emergency Service, Hospital↗
PubMed1986

Educational intervention by computer in childhood asthma: a randomized clinical trial testing the use of a new teaching intervention in childhood asthma.

To affect asthma-related knowledge, behavior, and morbidity, researchers tested a new educational intervention for children with asthma: an asthma-specific computer game called Asthma Command, which was specifically designed for this study. Sixty-five children with moderately severe asthma were randomly assigned to one of two groups, and 54 completed the study. Both groups were seen approximately six times during the 1 year of the study. Control subjects (n = 29) played routine computer games. Experimental subjects (n = 25) played Asthma Command. Compared with children in the control group, experimental subjects showed improvement in knowledge about asthma (P less than .001), behavior related to the management of asthma (P less than .008), and a trend toward the reduction of acute visits due to asthma (P less than .13). Children in the experimental group also scored higher on the assessment of behaviors related to the management of asthma that were specifically addressed by the intervention provided by Asthma Command (P less than .01). Differences between the control and experimental groups showed a greater improvement in the experimental group in 21 (84%) of the 25 outcome variables in the study (P = .004, Sign test). The study indicates that an asthma-specific computer game can significantly affect knowledge and behavior and may potentially affect morbidity in childhood asthma.

Asthma↗