Carlos Yánez Benñitez, Teófilo Lorente-Aznar, Idurre Labaka, Iñigo Soteras, Marta Baselga, Koji Morishita, Marcelo Ribeiro, Antonio Güemes
Disaster medicine and public health preparedness 2023 Nov 08Search 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 < 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 < 0.001). For lower extremities, SWAT was found to be inferior to other options (P < 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 < 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.
Carlos Yánez Benñitez, Teófilo Lorente-Aznar, Idurre Labaka, Iñigo Soteras, Marta Baselga, Koji Morishita, Marcelo Ribeiro, Antonio Güemes. Extremity Tourniquet Self-Application by Antarctica Zodiac Crew Members. Disaster medicine and public health preparedness. 2023 Nov 08;17:e561
PMID: 37937358
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