Electric scooter related injuries in Calgary emergency departments.

Objectives: Electric scooters (e-scooters) have contributed to a rise in injury burden and emergency department (ED) utilization since their local introduction 3 years ago. This study is a novel collaboration between the City of Calgary's Department of Transportation and emergency medicine researchers to better understand the nature and frequencies of e-scooter injuries. It quantifies the incidence and characteristics of e-scooter related injuries treated in Calgary EDs/urgent care centres (UCCs).

Tempo-controlled resistance training of the hip abductors and ankle dorsiflexors with light loads does not improve postural sway in older adults.

The force steadiness capabilities of the hip abductors and ankle dorsiflexors can explain a significant amount of the variance in postural sway during four types of standing balance tests. Control over balance, as well as force steadiness, generally worsens with aging, although the latter can be improved with unique training interventions. The purpose of our study was to assess how tempo-controlled, light-load resistance training of the hip abductors and ankle dorsiflexors influences performance in clinical movement tests, postural sway, muscle strength, and force steadiness in older adults.

Hepatitis C Virus Screening of High-Risk Patients in a Canadian Emergency Department.

Background: Approximately 0.7% of the Canadian population is infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV), and many individuals are unaware of their infection. Our objectives were to utilize an emergency department (ED) based point-of-care (POC) HCV screening test to describe our local population and estimate the proportion of high-risk patients in our population with undiagnosed HCV.

Advantages of minimally invasive, balloon-dissector-assisted tissue expander placement: a clinical and experimental study.

Background: Tissue expansion has been dependent upon healing the access incision after placement. Delay can be reduced with minimally placed expanders. Smaller, remote incisions allow for earlier expansion.

Improving endothelial cell adhesion to vascular graft surfaces: clinical need and strategies.

Synthetic vascular grafts do not spontaneously endothelialize in humans and require some form of anticoagulation to maintain patency. Preseeding synthetic graft materials such as expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) with endothelial cells (EC) has been examined in various in vitro and in vivo models. Although various studies provide encouraging results, clinical trials for EC seeding on synthetic grafts have not been equally successful.

Use of the balloon dissector in minimally invasive aesthetic and reconstructive surgery.

The use of minimally invasive surgery continues to evolve in all fields of surgery with new developments in techniques and instrumentation. One instrument that has evolved and become useful in the field of plastic surgery is the balloon dissector. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the balloon dissector in minimally invasive aesthetic and reconstructive plastic surgery.

Sternal plating for the treatment of sternal nonunion.

Background: Sternal nonunion, defined as sternal pain with clicking, instability, or both for more than 6 months in the absence of infection, is an uncommon complication of median sternotomy. Nonunion is frequently complicated by the presence of multiple transverse fractures, which make simple rewiring inadequate.

Methods: Six patients with debilitating pain secondary to sternal nonunion were treated with the technique of sternal plating between 1989 and 1995.

Perforated jejunal diverticula.

Jejunal diverticular (JD) perforation is an uncommon cause of acute abdominal pain in the elderly. From 1971 to 1994 we treated 13 such patients, 9 men and 4 women, with a mean age of 68 years. All patients experienced sudden onset of abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, and leukocytosis (range of white blood cell counts, 14,000-21,000).

Reduction mammaplasty for gigantomastia using inferiorly based pedicle and free nipple transplantation.

Patients with gigantomastia have severely distorted anatomical breast structures. Reduction mammaplasty in such cases using the inferiorly based pedicle containing the nipple-areola complex can be technically difficult, yield poor results, and cause postoperative complications such as nipple necrosis and loss. Alternative traditional methods such as amputation mammaplasty with free nipple-areola transplantation usually results in a flattened, nonaesthetic breast with poor projection.

Surgical scar endometrioma.

Relatively few instances of surgical scar endometrioma have been reported. Herein we review 24 patients treated for this condition at the institutions at which we work between 1972 and 1992. The age of the patients ranged from 17 to 47 years, with an average age of 31.

Laparoscopic reduction of acute gastric volvulus.

The traditional surgical treatment of gastric volvulus involves upper abdominal laparotomy with gastric detorsion, fixation, and, when present, repair of associated diaphragmatic hernia. We describe a case of organoaxial gastric volvulus associated with a paraesophageal hernia in a poor risk patient, which was successfully treated with laparoscopic detorsion and percutaneous endoscopic gastropexy. This approach avoided the morbidity of a laparotomy and allowed the rapid recovery of gastric function.

Quantification of gas denucleation and thrombogenicity of vascular grafts.

In vitro methods were developed to measure the air content of vascular graft walls and the thrombogenicity of this air. Gas content (volume %) of expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) grafts from different sources ranged from 75.5 +/- 0.