Convulsive syncope in blood donors

Abstract

Syncope with and without convulsion was studied in unselected blood donors in a community blood center. Convulsive syncope occurred in 0.03% of all blood donors and was more commonly observed when nursing personnel were alerted to its possible occurrence. It was more common in men. Although tonic extensor spasm was the most common convwithout convulsion was studied in unselected blood donors in a community blood center. Convulsive syncope occurred in 0.03% of all blood donors and was more commonly observed when nursing personnel were alerted to its possible occurrence. It was more common in men. Although tonic extensor spasm was the most common convwithout convulsion was studied in unselected blood donors in a community blood center. Convulsive syncope occurred in 0.03% of all blood donors and was more commonly observed when nursing personnel were alerted to its possible occurrence. It was more common in men. Although tonic extensor spasm was the most common convulsive movement, other complex convulsive phenomena occurred, some simulating epileptic seizure. No statistical difference in changes of pulse or blood pressure was found between subjects with convulsive versus nonconvulsive syncope. Similarly, no difference was found between subjects with tonic spasm and those with other convulsive phenomena, nor between those with "early" and those with "delayed" reactions. Marked individual variation may exist in the susceptibility of the central nervous system to ischemia. Some individuals appear to be predisposed to development of seizures in situations of global cerebral ischemia such as occur in hypotension and bradycardia.

Moderate and Severe Reactions during Autologous Blood Donations Are No More Frequent than during Homologous Blood Donations

“…The homologous donation reaction frequency is similar to the 2-3% reported in the literature [9][10][11], Moderate and severe donor reaction frequencies were similar at autologous and homologous donations: moderate reactions, 0.19% for autologous donors compared to 0.22% for homologous donors, and severe reactions, 0.039% for autologous donors compared to 0.037% for homologous donors. These frequencies are similar to those published previously for homologous donations, 0.31% syncopal epi sodes and 0.037% convulsive episodes [12]. Our study ob served sufficient numbers of autologous donations to deter mine the frequency of moderate and severe reactions.…”

Falls, faints, fits and funny turns

“…Stiff falls as well as myoclonic jerks have been described in a seminal paper by Lempert et al, based on intentionally provoked syncope (using the so-called "mess trick") [22]. Estimates of how often jerking movements occur in syncope vary widely, from 12-46 % in fainting blood donors to 90 % in a well-studied group in whom syncope was provoked with the mess trick [22,24,29]. For practical purposes it suffices to know that jerking movements occur often enough in syncope to mean that their presence does not exclude syncope.…”

Frequency of Adverse Events during Blood and Apheresis Donations: A Single-Center Study

“…Although these procedures are considered to be safe, data reported in the medical literature about the frequency of adverse events during donation show a broad het- Table 3. Comparison between donors who experienced adverse events and normal donors erogeneity [1,2,[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Furthermore, most reports come from multicenter studies with a marked center-to-center variation in adverse events rates [1,2,14,15,19].…”

“…Even though homologous blood donation is generally considered to be a safe procedure with a low incidence of donor reactions and injuries [3,[6][7][8][9][10][11], data reported in the medical literature on the prevalence of adverse events in autologous blood donors are contradictory [12][13][14][15][16][17]. Moreover, little is known about the frequency of adverse reactions during apheresis donations [18][19][20][21][22] since these procedures have been introduced only recently.…”