Hyperthermia Case Studies

Purpose: The purpose of this speech is to educate and inform my audience of the risks inherent from unintended hypothermia. I’m eager to alert perioperative staff of the potential dangers as well as the preventative measures that can be taken in order to avoid complications associated with unintended hypothermia. My central idea is hypothermia management saves lives.

Koran Z. Therapeutic Hypothermia in the Post-Resuscitation Patient: The Development and Implementation of an Evidence-Based Protocol for the Emergency Department. J Trauma Nursing 16: 48-57, Jan-March 2009. Web. 20 June 2015.

hypertension. Therapeutic hypothermia (THT) has been considered an effective method for reducing ischemic injury of the brain due to cardiac arrest. But there are some opponents in the medical community who believe that broadening the scope of THT could be dangerous to patients. Although opponents do not seem to blame THT for adverse patient outcomes; the disagreement seems to be about the variables involved before hospital arrival, amount of time that it takes to administer THT in the ER, which therapies should be administered with THT and the need for more research that tracks adverse events. A study published by The American Journal of Emergency Medicine supports the widely held view that THT is an effective treatment for cardiac arrest

In this article published in the journal Dyanmics, also known as the journal for the Canadian Association of Critical Care Nurses, the authors review a retrospective cohort regarding the barriers for time to target temperature management in cardiac arrest patients who are treated with therapeutic hypothermia. The article authored by a both registerd nurses and medical doctors open by reviewing the benefits of therapeutic hypothermia. The article reviews two randomized controlled trials that showed that therapeutic hypothermia when compared to no intervention correlated with improved neurological survival in patients after cardiac arrest. Therapeutic hypothermia has a direct relation to patient survival with intact neurologic function; however

Hypothermia is not a widely used treatment due to risk for complications associated with hypothermia such as pneumonia, seizures and infection.

Hypothermia has two main types of causes. It classically occurs from exposure to extreme cold. Commonly this includes alcohol intoxication but may also include low blood sugar, anorexia, and advanced age. Hypothermia may be diagnosed based on either a person's symptoms in the presence of risk factors or by measuring a person's core temperature. One of the lowest documented body temperatures from which someone with accidental hypothermia has survived is in a near-drowning of a 7-year-old girl in Sweden. Survival after more than six hours of CPR has been described. Symptoms of mild hypothermia may be vague, Increased urine production due to cold, mental confusion, and hepatic dysfunction may also be present. Hyperglycemia may be present, as glucose consumption by cells and insulin secretion both decrease, and tissue sensitivity to insulin may be blunted. Sympathetic activation also releases glucose from the liver. In many cases, however, especially in alcoholic patients, hypoglycemia appears to be a more common presentation. Low body temperature results in shivering becoming more violent. Muscle mis-coordination becomes apparent. Movements are slow and labored, accompanied by a stumbling pace and mild confusion, although the person may appear alert. Surface blood

Hypothermia protocol for the post cardiac arrest patient has been an evidence based practice of this therapy for about a decade now. This intervention, often used in the critical care setting, is now expanding to primary emergency responders as well. This paper will present some of the notable research that has been done on therapeutic hypothermia, and current use of this intervention.

Survivors of cardiac arrest often suffer from neurological damage when oxygen to the brain is depleted. This ischemia to the brain can cause lesions or damaged areas; which can effect any part of the body that is controlled by that portion of the brain. Decreasing the body temperature of a patient has shown to be effective in decreasing the amount of damage to the brain. Therapeutic hypothermia may be a reasonable treatment for patients following cardiac arrest due to its ability to decrease the impact of ischemia; reducing the number of lesions to the brain and possibly reducing the patient mortality rate. This paper will discuss the benefits, risks, and Mercy Hospital 's protocol for using therapeutic hypothermia following a cardiac arrest.

Trauma, or unintentional (accidental) injuries, is the leading cause of death in individuals in the age groups 1-44 and is the fifth leading cause of mortality in the United states (Heron,2010). The major cause of preventable deaths from these traumas was caused by uncontrollable hemorrhaging (Alam, 2009). If doctors had more time to evaluate and repair the damage, they could prevent deaths caused by uncontrolled hemorrhaging. A new clinical trial using induced hypothermia is being conducted by Samuel A. Tisherman at the University of Pittsburg Medical Center (UMPC) Presbyterian Hospital to enable surgeons to fix the structural damage that would otherwise be fatal. This revolutionary procedure is called

233). These experiments and others eventually led to the use of therapeutic hypothermia in humans undergoing certain cardiac surgery in which an extended ischemic period was expected although the degree of the therapeutic hypothermia, which ranged from 30-32 ºC, was associated with an increased risk of complications. As a result, the use of therapeutic hypothermia was relatively limited until it was discovered that by inducing a milder hypothermia (32-34 ºC) the number of complications associated with this protective treatment were greatly reduced. The publication of two landmark studies led to the widespread acceptance of mild therapeutic hypothermia as a protective measure for individuals who have experienced and out-of-hospital cardiac

Standard WBC procedures leads to restoration of motor functions and heal nerve damage. At the Olympic Rehabilitation Center of Spała in Poland in 2008, ten rugby players of the Italian National Team are subjected to the research study that has demonstrated that Whole Body Cryotherapy reduces sports haemolysis. By measuring hematological parameters of the athletes, the study concluded that cryotherapy prevents the physiological impairments derived from haemolysis, which is caused by the breakdown of red blood cells. Studies results has shown that cryotherapy for pain management treatments cause a significant reduction of pain related to rheumatoid diseases over a two month period. The surge of endorphins in the blood following cryogenic chamber sessions reduce muscle spasms and twitching. Blood tests indicate that the immediate analgesic effects of skin cooling last for weeks, suppressing heightened pain responses. Studies has shown that cold chamber therapy causes the lower skin temperature. That helps to increase pain threshold as well as actual pain symptoms by blocking the pain receptors. In the end, it breaks the connection between the

Also providing moisturizing measures, keep the patient’s head of bed elevated thirty to forty-five degrees to prevent the risk of aspiration unless the patient has another condition where this would be contraindicated. Finally, it is very important to wash hands thoroughly before and after touching ventilator tubing. It is also important to assess your patient’s breathing on a regular basis, if your patient is able to breath on their own, then they may be able to be taken off of mechanical ventilation. All of these are very simple nursing interventions that should be implemented consistently in order to provide the best possible care for these

One of the most significant mechanisms of severe preservation injury arises from ischemia of the organ resulting in an increase of antigen production. 1 This sets the precedence for the importance of critically analyzing injury recovery potential as propagated though normothermic preservation as opposed to cold static storage. Cold static storage lends itself heavily to injury as a result of oxygen deprivation prior to removal, cold storage ischemia, rewarming, and reperfusion in the recipient environment.2 Normothermic perfusion techniques effectively weave around the dangers of static cold storage through the constant perfusion of blood, oxygen, and nutrients, all while maintaining a sanguine environment for the excised liver. A 2011 study shows the drastic decrease of proinflammatory genes and cytokines, endothelial cell injury, and

What is homeostasis? Homeostasis is “(1) The tendency of an organism or a cell to regulate its internal conditions, usually by a system of feedback controls, so as to stabilize health and functioning, regardless of the outside changing conditions (2) The ability of the body or a cell to seek and maintain a condition of equilibrium or stability within its internal environment when dealing with external changes”. So what does homeostasis and hyperthermia have in common? I’ll tell you what they have in common pretty much homeostasis and hyperthermia both play a balancing act with its external environment.

The safety and benefits of hypertonic saline resuscitation extend to both the pediatric and geriatric populations, but using solutions at the lower end of tonicity is probably safer. The greatest benefit may ultimately be for those patients with the most limited cardiopulmonary reserves, those with inhalation injury, and those with larger burns approaching 40% or