Last year I completed the Emergency Neurological Life Support (ENLS) course and got certified in ENLS. The ENLS Course is provided by the Neurocritical Care Society – “Improving Outcomes for Patients With Life-Threatening Neurologic Illnesses”.
All the ENLS protocols are online for free. You only have to pay for the course if you want CME credit and the certification.
Emergency Neurological Life Support (ENLS) is a series of protocols suggesting important steps to take in the first hour of a neurological emergency. ENLS is designed to help healthcare professionals improve patient care and outcomes during the most crucial time – the critical first hours of the patient’s neurological emergency. ENLS demonstrates a collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach and provides a consistent set of protocols, practical checklists, decision points, and suggested communication to use during patient management. These emergencies include Ischemic Stroke, Intracerebral Hemorrhage, Status Epilepticus, Subarachnoid Hemorrhage, Meningitis and Encephalitis, Airway Management including intubating a patient with high intracranial pressure, Traumatic Brain Injury, Traumatic Spine injury and Spinal Cord Compression.
YouTube suggested that I might be interested in learning about Pupillometry and as usual, they are right.
The two YouTube videos below provide a brief introduction and there are two articles cited in Additional Resources below.
The NeurOptics® NPi™-100 Pupillometer for Critical Care 4:49
Uploaded on May 25, 2011
The NeurOptics® NPi™-100 Pupillometer for Critical Care is a new technology which extends the pupil check beyond the capability of the human eye. It is used to quantify both the pupil size and light reactivity of patients with traumatic brain injury, stroke, subarachnoid hemorrhage and other neurocritical care emergencies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQLoBlGH2I8&app=desktop
Case Studies in Automated Pupillometry — Neurocritical Care Society Meeting 2012 35:10
Published on Nov 8, 2012
Dr. Jeffrey Frank from the University of Chicago moderates a session at the 2012 Neurocritical Care Society meeting in Denver. Case studies in automated pupillometry were presented by Dr. Chitra Venkat from Stanford where the NeurOptics NPi™-100 Pupillometer made a big difference in patient care and outcomes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv7hW1FbN2g&app=desktop
Additional Resources:
Portable infrared pupillometry: a review. [PubMed Abstract] Anesth Analg. 2015 Jun;120(6):1242-53. doi: 10.1213/ANE.0000000000000314.
Infrared pupillometry, the Neurological Pupil index and unilateral pupillary dilation after traumatic brain injury: implications for treatment paradigms. [PubMed Abstract] [Full Text HTML] [Full Text PDF]
