About half the time, the doctors and nurses on popular fictional TV medical
shows give improper seizure first aid that, in reality, could lead to
broken teeth, bruises or dislocations, according to a study to be presented
in April at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting.
Epileptologists noticed a trend of "people doing very inappropriate things
on television and seeing some of the same sorts of things happening to our
patients in real life," said Dr. Jeremy Moeller, who co-authored the study.
"It's impossible to definitively prove the connection, but one of the
potential sources of misinformation is TV."
For example, bystanders should not try to hold down someone experiencing a
generalized tonic-clonic, or grand mal, seizure, nor attempt to force open
the patient's mouth, said Dr. Moeller, a postdoctoral clinical fellow at
the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center in the Columbia University Medical Center
Dept. of Neurology in New York.
Dr. Moeller and his colleagues examined 327 episodes of "Grey's Anatomy,"
"House," "Private Practice" and "ER" that contained 59 seizures. Though
nearly all seizure management care was provided by characters identified on
the programs as doctors and nurses, they performed inappropriate first aid
in 25 of the cases -- 45.8% of the time. The correct first aid was
delivered in 28.8% of the seizure cases, while the quality of the care was
"indeterminate" in the remainder.
Previous research has shown that patients, misinformed by fictional TV
programs, overrate the effectiveness of cardiopulmonary resuscitation and
misunderstand how the U.S. organ donation and transplantation system
functions.
Proper seizure first aid that emphasizes a relatively hands-off approach
might not be as interesting to watch, Dr. Moeller said.
"We noticed that the doctors and nurses responding to these seizures were
not remaining calm," he said. "That serves dramatic purposes, but it's not
the way we'd educate the family members of our patients, which is that at
the time of the seizure, put something under their heads, put them on their
sides and don't panic."
Guidelines on proper first aid for seizures are available from the Epilepsy
Foundation of America (www.epilepsyfoundation.org/about/firstaid).
The full and original article can be found here:
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/03/01/prsg0305.htm
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