Nearly drowning, valuation of the cerebral injury when entering the hospital. Intensive Pediatric Therapy

Abstract

We carried out a descriptive retrospective study including all the patients that were entered in the Service of Intensive Therapy of the hospital Eliseo "Noel" Caamaño, in the period from June 1982 to June 2004, with the diagnosis of nearly drowning, with the purpose of determining the neurological state and its relation with different variables that might have influence in the intensity of the damage, as well as in the final surviving of the patients. The obtained results allowed us knowing the managing of the paediatrics patient that have suffered this kind of accidents, as well as their state at the arrival to the service; 68% of the patients had a moderated to severe affection according to the Conn and Glasgow scales; moreover, there was a correlation of up to 97 % between these evaluation methods. Among the variables that influenced in the state of the children at the entering, there was an immersion time of more than 5 minutes for those classified as severe, 70% of the sample; 7% of all the studied patients died, all of them classified as severe.