Adverse effect of helicopter flight on the ability to palpate carotid pulses

To determine if the air medical helicopter environment compromises the ability to palpate carotid pulses.

Using a carotid pulse model, flight nurses were tested for their ability to palpate the simulated carotid pulse at normal (120/80 mm Hg) and low (80/60 mm Hg) blood pressures on the ground and during helicopter flight.

Palpation tests were performed during flight in an MBB BO-105 twin-turbine engine, single-rotor air medical helicopter; control palpation tests were performed on the ground.

Ten flight nurses.

Tracings of pulsatile pressure from the carotid pulse model verified its ability to simulate a wide range of arterial pressures. Analyses of variance for repeated measures, including polynomial contrasts, were performed to compare the number of correct detections of the presence or absence of pulse pressures in flight with the number of correct detections in the two control conditions for both carotid pulse pressures. The mean in-flight number of correct detections was lower than both the preflight and postflight control tests, which were themselves nearly equal, at each simulated carotid pulse pressure. The quadratic terms for both the 120/80 mm Hg trial (F1,14 = 9.28; P = .0087) and the 80/60 mm Hg trial (F1,18 = 5.69; P = .0283) were statistically significant.

Factors associated with transport of patients in an MBB BO-105 helicopter impair the ability of flight nurses to detect carotid pulses in a simulated physiologic model.