Extremity tourniquet training at high seas

Background Future navy officers require unique training for emergency medical response in the isolated maritime environment. The authors issued a workshop on extremity bleeding control, using four different commercial extremity tourniquets onboard a training sail ship. The purposes were to assess participants' perceptions of this educational experience and evaluate self-application simplicity while navigating on high seas. Methods A descriptive observational study was conducted as part of a workshop issued to volunteer training officers. A post-workshop survey collected their perceptions about the workshops' content usefulness and adequacy, tourniquet safety, self-application simplicity, and device preference. Tourniquet preference was measured by frequency count while the rest of the studied variables on a one-to-ten Likert scale. Frequencies and percentages were calculated for the studied variables, and application simplicity means compared using the ANOVA test (p < 0.05). Results Fifty-one Spanish training naval officers, aged 20 or 21, perceived high sea workshop content’s usefulness, adequacy, and safety level at 8.6/10, 8.7/10, and 7.5/10, respectively. As for application simplicity, CAT and SAM-XT were rated equally with a mean of 8.5, followed by SWAT (7.9) and RATS (6.9), this one statistically different from the rest (p < 0.01). Windlass types were preferred by 94%. Conclusions The training sail ship’s extremity bleeding control workshop was perceived as useful and its content adequate by the participating midshipmen. Windlass types were regarded as easier to apply than elastic counterparts. They were also preferred by nine out of every ten participants

Extremity Tourniquet Self-Application by Antarctica Zodiac Crew Members

Search and rescue teams and Antarctic research groups use protective cold-water anti-exposure suits (AES) when cruising on Zodiacs. Extremity tourniquet (ET) self-application (SA) donned with AESs has not been previously studied. Our study therefore assessed the SA of 5 commercial ETs (CAT, OMNA, RATS, RMT, and SWAT-T) among 15 volunteers who donned these suits. Tourniquet‘s SA ability, ease of SA, tolerance, and tourniquet preference were measured. All ETs tested were self-applied to the upper extremity except for the SWAT, which was self-applied with the rest to the lower extremity. Ease- of- SA mean values were compared using the Friedman and Durbin-Conover post hoc tests (P &lt; 0.001). Regarding the upper extremity, OMNA achieved the highest score of 8.5 out of 10, while RMT, and SWAT received lower scores than other options (P &lt; 0.001). For lower extremities, SWAT was found to be inferior to other options (P &lt; 0.01). Overall, OMNA was the best performer. The RATS showed significantly lower tolerance than the other groups in repeated- measures ANOVA with a Tukey post hoc test (P &lt; 0.01). Additionally, out of the 5 ETs tested, 60% of subjects preferred OMNA. The study concluded that SA commercial ETs are feasible over cold-water anti-exposure suits in the Antarctic climate

Influencia de la etnicidad en las características antropométricas de los niños oscenses

Objectives:Nutritional status and body composition from children populations vary eventually.The objective of the present workis to study the anthropometric characteristics in children from Huesca, aged 6-10 y, and to evaluate the influence that ethnicityhas on anthropometric measurements.Material and methods:Results obtained are from the cross-sectional initial part of thePIANO project (Proyecto de Intervención Educacional sobre Nutrición y Actividad Física en Niños Oscenses). In this study, anthro-pometry has been assessed in 382 children aged 6-10 y, grouping according to their ethnicity in: non ethnic Spanish, immigrantsand gypsies.Results:BMI, waist circumference and adipose tissue from studied children are all higher than in reference popula-tion. Gypsy children have higher weight, higher BMI, more subcutaneous fat and a more centralized distribution of skinfolds, com-pared with non ethnic Spanish counterparts (p<0.001). Immigrant children have also a higher percentage of central skinfoldscompared with non ethnic children (p<0.01).Conclusions:Adiposity and its subcutaneous central distribution are both higher ingypsy children than in non-ethnic Spanish. Ethnicity and sociocultural aspects may have influence on nutritional status and bodycomposition in children from our environment.Objetivos:El estado nutricional y la composición corporal de la población infantil varían a lo largo del tiempo. El objetivodel presente trabajo es estudiar las características antropométricas de los niños escolares oscenses.Material y métodos:Los resultados forman parte del estudio transversal inicial del proyecto PIANO (Proyecto de Intervención Educacionalsobre Nutrición y Actividad Física en Niños Oscenses). Se han medido los parámetros antropométricos de 382 niñososcenses de 6 a 10 años agrupados según su etnicidad en: españoles no étnicos, inmigrantes y etnia gitana.Resultados:Lapoblación estudiada presenta un IMC, un perímetro abdominal y un panículo adiposo superiores a los de la población dereferencia. Los niños de etnia gitana presentan mayor peso, mayor IMC, más cantidad de panículo adiposo y una distribu-ción de los pliegues más central, en comparación con el resto de niños españoles (p<0,001). Los niños inmigrantes tam-bién tienen un mayor porcentaje de pliegues cutáneos centrales respecto a los niños españoles (p<0,01).Conclusiones:Laadiposidad general y la distribución central de la grasa subcutánea en los niños de etnia gitana son mayores que en losespañoles no étnicos.La etnicidad y los aspectos socioculturales parecen tener influencia en el estado nutricional y la com-posición corporal de los niños en nuestro medio