PHTLS Pocket Companion

Prehospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS) as a course is based on the Advanced Trauma Life Support, a course for physicians developed by the American College of Surgeons, Committee on Trauma. PHTLS courses follow the principles of care of trauma patients as developed by this Committee on Trauma. The Committee on Trauma of the American College of Surgeons also provides the medical direction and content oversight for the PHTLS program.
Although originating in the United States, PHTLS is international in scope and courses are found in 33 countries worldwide. PHTLS is also equivalent to ITLS course.

This simple app contains five modules:

The Glasgow Coma Scale or GCS is a neurological scale (one for Adults and another for Pediatrics) that aims to give a reliable, objective way of recording the conscious state of a person for initial as well as subsequent assessment. A patient is assessed against the criteria of the scale, and the resulting points give a patient score between 3 (indicating deep unconsciousness) and either 14 (original scale) or 15 (the more widely used modified or revised scale).

GCS was initially used to assess level of consciousness after head injury, and the scale is now used by first aid, EMS, nurses and doctors as being applicable to all acute medical and trauma patients. In hospitals it is also used in monitoring chronic patients in intensive care.

The scale was published in 1974 by Graham Teasdale and Bryan J. Jennett, professors of neurosurgery at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. It was first used at the Institute of Neurological Sciences at the city's Southern General Hospital.

GCS is used as part of several ICU scoring systems, including APACHE II, SAPS II, and SOFA, to assess the status of the central nervous system. A similar scale, the Rancho Los Amigos Scale is used to assess the recovery of traumatic brain injury patients.

There is a module for Pediatric Vital Signs

The Parkland formula is a formula used to calculate the amount of resuscitation fluid required for the first 24 hours in a victim of burns to ensure they remain hemodynamically stable. The fluid required for the first 24 hours is four times the product of the body weight and body surface area affected by burns.

The Parkland formula is mathematically expressed as:

Fluid \ required \ in \ first \ 24 \ hours = (4 \cdot Persons \ weight \ (kg)) \cdot Percent \ body \ surface \ area \ burned.
For example, a person weighing 75 kg with burns to 20% of his or her BSA would require 4 x 75 x 20 = 6,000 mL of fluid replacement within 24 hours. The first half of this amount is delivered within 8 hours from the burn incident, and the remaining fluid is delivered in the next 16 hours. The body surface area involved in burns for adults can be calculated by applying the rule of nine: 9% for each arm, 18% for each leg, 18% for the front of the torso, 18% for the back of the torso, and 9% for the head and 1% for the perineum.

Finally, there is a module for the Rule of Nines. In adults, the "rule of nines" is used to determine the total percentage of area burned for each major section of the body.[1] In some cases, the burns may cover more than one body part, or may not fully cover such a part; in these cases, burns are measured by using the casualty's palm as a reference point for 1% of the body.