The blood saving protocol, which is the product of 15 years of experience, has gradually been improved, until the current form has been achieved, which includes predeposit, acute intentional isovolemic hemodilution, controlled hypotension, intraoperative blood recovery, postoperative monitoring and blood recovery, external compressive elastic dressing. The acceptance of values for hemoglobin which may even be < 8 g/dl during the late postoperative period, as long as this is well-tolerated by patients, has allowed us to drastically reduce the use of homologous transfusions. Over the last 2 years, out of 59 autotransfused patients submitted to revision surgery of the hip, only 9 (equal to 15%) required homologous transfusion. An analysis of the data shows that the use of homologous blood is associated with the presence of ischemic cardiopathy (p < 0.001) and with a predeposit which is less than 4 units of blood (packed red blood cell+fresh frozen plasma) (p = 0.05).

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Patient education and migraine: a pilot study.

Our study examines the effectiveness of an educational approach to migraine patients. A course in migraine education was set up for 30 patients suffering from this disease; meetings were structured taking into consideration specific educational aims, with parameters evaluated before the course, at the end of the course and at a 3-month follow-up. The results, particularly the increase in the migraineurs' knowledge of their disease and the decrease in the use of symptomatic drugs, suggest the effectiveness of the course. Furthermore, our study suggests that there is a need to build educational processes into therapeutic protocols, as they enable patients to manage their chronic diseases more correctly.

Adult↗