Animals perceiving repeated aversive events can become chronically stressed. Chronic activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis can have deleterious consequences on physiological parameters (e.g. BW, blood chemistry) and behaviour (e.g. emotional reactivity, stereotypies, cognition). Environmental enrichment (EE) can be a mean to reduce animal stress and to improve welfare. The...

A developmentally delayed, 13-year old autistic boy required management of multifocal cerebral and pulmonary tumors, involving several anesthetics over a 4-month period. At each anesthetic he refused premedication, displayed increasing anxiety and became more combative. With parental guidance and involvement, a variety of anesthetists tried a range of techniques to achieve induction, each ultim...

worldwide, more than 185,000 children under 18 years die from road traffic accidents annually (each four minutes a child death occurred due to road crashes); with most casualties from developing countries. 95% of road traffic fatalities among children occur in developing countries. many more children are injured, often severely, and suffering from different disabilities. road accidents cause ex...

Physical restraint is used as a last resort emergency measure to calm and safeguard agitated and/or aggressive psychiatric patients. This can sometimes cause injuries, and rare fatalities have occurred. One mechanism of injury and death while in physical restraint is that of severe asphyxiation. We present the case of a hospitalized man in his mid-30s, suffering from schizophrenia. The patient ...

INTRODUCTION Physical restraint (PR) use in the intensive care unit (ICU) has been associated with higher rates of self-extubation and prolonged ICU length of stay. Our objectives were to describe patterns and predictors of PR use. METHODS We conducted a secondary analysis of a prospective observational study of analgosedation, antipsychotic, neuromuscular blocker, and PR practices in 51 Cana...

BACKGROUND Considering the negative consequences of using physical restraints, we conducted this study to identify patients who are more frequently restrained in a psychiatric emergency ward as an initial step to limit the use of restraint to the minimum possible. METHODS This was a retrospective case control study conducted in Iran Psychiatric Hospital in Tehran, Iran. We reviewed the files ...

OBJECTIVE This descriptive study examines 45 child and adolescent fatalities related to restraints in residential (institutional) placements in the United States from 1993 to 2003. METHOD The study team used common Internet search engines as its primary case discovery strategy to determine the frequency and the nature of the fatalities, as well as the characteristics of the children and the a...

Background Restraint of psychiatric patients is an ethical issue, emphasized by awareness of the rights of mentally ill individuals. Restraint significantly influences the emotional welfare of the patient, is traumatic, deprives the individual of freedom and has aggressive connotations. Aims: To examine the influence of raising the awareness of the staff to reduce use of physical restraints. Hy...