Fair enough. Difficult to argue with that!
AF
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rowley Cottingham" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2005 11:49 PM
Subject: Re: Pulseless VT
>I mightn't know answers but I do know men who do. Here is the answer from
> the horse's mouth, the wonderful and irrepressible Dr Douglas
> Chamberlain, retired(ish) Consultant Cardiologist and icon:
>
>
> First an obvious statement but the answer to the quesion does follow!
>
> Pulseless VT means pulseless because it is very rapid and one would
> not necessarily expect a pulse. And so it is quite different in
> implications and treatment from PEA which implies there is a rhythm
> which SHOULD give a pulse at that rate.
>
> The first is a shockable rhythm, and the second is a non-shockable
> rhythm. I do know that lots of people confuse the two.
>
> But - maybe what the question is really about. A sychronized shock
> requires an interval after an identified QRS before a shock will
> deliver - to avoid the vulnerable period of the T wave. With rapid
> VT (pulseless) the machine is sometimes inhibited totally by seeing
> QRS complexis in rapid succession. So synchronization does not
> usually work and wastes time. Moreover, the energy level to induce
> VF is usually relatively low. It is NOT usually induced by the sorts
> of energies that are used for shockable rhythms.
>
> So for true pulseless VT use an unsychronized shock.
>
>
> Douglas
>
> /Rowley./
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