Valproate: life-saving, life-changing

Life-saving and life-taking: a comment.

Tracheal intubation in the ICU: Life saving or life threatening?

Tracheal intubation (TI) is a routine procedure in the intensive care unit (ICU), and is often life saving. However, life-threatening complications occur in a significant proportion of procedures, making TI perhaps one the most common but underappreciated airway emergencies in the ICU. In contrast to the controlled conditions in the operating room (OR), the unstable physiologic state of critica...

Uncertain lifetime, life protection, and the value of life saving.

The analytic innovation is treating life's end as uncertain, and life expectancy as partly the product of individuals' efforts to self-protect against mortality and morbidity risks. The demand for self-protection is modeled in a stochastic, life-cycle framework under alternative insurance options. The model helps explain the trend and systematic diversity in life expectancies across different p...

Life-saving or life-threatening? Prehospital thoracostomy for thoracic trauma.

A bus was involved in a roll-over road traffic accident. Most occupants were ejected from the vehicle. Primary triage revealed 9 dead, 1 P4 (unsalvageable), 5 P1 (immediate life threat) and 30 less severely injured patients. Two prehospital doctors performed a secondary triage, provided medical supervision and performed critical care interventions where necessary. A young man initially triaged ...

Peritoneal adhesion: it can be life-threatening, and life-saving

BACKGROUND The inevitable post-inflammatory fibrosis and adhesion often compromises future treatment in peritoneal dialysis patients. Here, we describe a patient who experienced an unusual form of peritoneal adhesion that made her give up peritoneal dialysis. However, its unique pattern also saved her from infection caused by bowel perforation. CASE PRESENTATION The female patient discontinue...