the TASER-ed patient

PHYSIOLOGY OF TASERS:
--nice article in Emergency Medicine News from Feb '12 (link below)


HIGHLIGHTS:
--TASERs deliver electrical current to cause diffuse muscular contraction, thus incapacitating

--people who need to be TASERed may be drugged up, overexherted, or sustain trauma, so there are other things to think about

--in studies with healthy subjects, there were minimal (returning to baseline in 10 minutes) or no changes in pulse, 02 saturation, bicarb, lactate, electrolytes, troponin, EKGs, acidosis


EVERYTHING'S RELATIVE:
--TASER joule output: 0.36-1.76 joules


RANDOM FACT:
--TASER stands for "Thomas A. Swift's electric rifle", after the developer's childhood hero


BOTTOM LINE:
--asymptomatic, awake post-TASERed patient, unlikely to need routine labs/monitoring


Submitted by S. Lee.


Reference(s): EMN article, review article, taser joules, picture