It ’s a Full Moon Tonight

It’s an almost universal belief among emergency medical personnel that patient volumes and patient behavior are affected by the phases of the moon. Particularly, many believe that EMS calls, ED visits, childbirth, psychiatric behavior and numerous other things increase during the full moon phase of the lunar cycle. But, is this belief true? Most will recount their personal experience with things that occurred in their life during full moons. However, as with many things, belief does not always translate into reality. For many years, the term “lunacy” was used to describe insanity and mental illness. Someone who had “lunacy” was described as being a “lunatic.” The term lunatic was actually derived from the Latin word lunaticus, which literally means “of the moon.” Prior to the modern era, many illnesses were thought to be caused by the moon including mental illness and epilepsy. For many years, the terms “lunatic” and “lunacy” were used in the legal setting to describe people with mental illness. Fortunately, with a better understanding of most disease processes, these terms are now considered archaic. In order to determine whether or not psychiatric emergencies or ED visits or EMS runs are related to the full moon phase of the lunar cycle, one must evaluate the actual data in an objective and scientific way. This is the only way to minimize anecdotal experience and bias. Interestingly, this has been done for several conditions, although the scientifi...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Patient Care Source Type: news