The Use of Hypothermia in Head Injury

The purpose of this case study is to examine the specific case study of a 40 year old male who suffered a traumatic brain injury as the result of a fall from a roof. For future reference the term "Traumatic Brain Injury" will be abbreviated here as TBI and "Intracranial Pressure" as ICP. In this study we will explore the medical findings that are common in such an injury and how they relate to the Paramedic in the field. The specificity of this case will be broken down to define relevant terminology and findings that were present to the paramedics that responded to this call. Lastly, TBI's will be explored and discussed for their relevance in the field, contributing factors and comorbidities as they relate to paramedicine.

Although these models were reported to produce graded severities of brain injury with similar morphology to the clinical condition, they present their own limitation. The severity of injury induced by an acceleration injury (weight drop) is often highly variable. Mild CCI cause focal contusion and subrachnoid hemorrhage are not commensurate with the typical concussion in humans. CCI and FPI require craniotomy/ craniectomy which are not clinically relevant. While blast injury is more controversial model with little standardization in blast modeling with regard to the duration of exposure and measurement of peak overpressure. An updated concussive animal model is necessary to replicate the important features of the injury in patients with mTBI as closely as

In this scenario, this patient seems to have a coup-contrecoup which cause the brain contusion. Coup is the injuries at the point of effect while Contrecoup is the injuries at the reverse opposite of the brain. As the patient swerved his car and hit a telephone pole as an alternative, the patient’s head smash the windshield at a high speediness as he underwent severe head trauma, the patient’s skull was clogged by the windshield; however, the patient’s brain was clogged as a result of the frontal feature inside his skull that caused damage to the frontal lobe of his brain, thereby, causes shearing to his subdural veins; besides, the patient’s head bounce back in the contrecoup cue instigating his brain to leap out of the posterior section of his inner skull damaging the section of the posterior brain triggering a trimming wound. As a result, the patient’s develops cerebral contusion. In details, the means of the injury to the head and the brain are undeniably related to the extent of the damaging distortion of the tissue

In this paper, I will be discussing ways to test Mary’s brain injury. Mary obtained her brain inju-ry by diving in a pool and hitting her head. Mary was shortly removed from the pool and sent to the hospital by the ambulance. Mary was unconscious for quite a while, but the next day re-gained consciousness. However, with the Glascow Coma Scale, Mary’s injuries will be tested and below you will find out how.

On Tuesday, February 21, 2017, at 2:00 p.m., the Investigator traveled back to the Cypres Gardens Center, after Mr. Talebi called to mention that the patient, Ms. Lindio Martin is willing to provide an r/s. In addition to Mr. Charles Cornelius r/s that afternoon.

Therapeutic hypothermia, also called targeted temperature management, is a procedure that lowers the body's temperature in order to treat a heart that has suddenly stopped working (cardiac arrest). This procedure is used in emergency situations. During cardiac arrest, the brain cannot get enough oxygen. The brain also starts to swell, which can damage or kill brain cells. Therapeutic hypothermia helps reduce swelling in the brain. It also slows down the body's metabolism and allows the heart and brain to recover.

Head injuries is defined as any external structural damage or functional impairment of the cranial contents. In the United States, it is estimated that there are 1.7 million head injuries, in which 275,000 are admitted to the hospital and 52,000 in deaths. However, many individuals do not seek medical attention when having an injury thus affecting the actual number of reported cases. When a patient has had a head injury, the health care practitioner needs to collected information that will guide him/her to utilized the appropriate diagnostic test. The information that needs to be collected include a description of injury from the patient or witness of the traumatic event while identifying the cause of the head injury, how it occurred (direct or indirect injury), and what type of force was exerted. Also, confirm the patient’s level of consciousness at the time of the injury and after

Hypothermia is a common problem in surgical patients. Up to 70% of patients experience some degree of hypothermia that is undergoing anesthetic surgery. Complications include but are not limited to wound infections, myocardial ischemia, and greater oxygen demands. The formal definition of hypothermia is when the patient’s core body temperature drops below 36 degrees Celsius or 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Thus, the purpose of the paper is to synthesize what studies reveal about the current state of knowledge on the effects of pre-operative warming of patient’s postoperative temperatures. I will discuss consistencies and contradictions in the literature, and offer possible explanations for the inconsistencies.

It is also unclear if it is the brain injury itself that causes the result and if it is the same for healthy people.

In addition, they also assess the magnitude of the brain injury through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI; Wilson et al., 1993). The data in this study support earlier research connoting that patients have short coma but report prolonged PTA. They found that patients showed substantially more extensive hemispheric damage when patients with perpetuated PTA (>7 days) and short coma (<6 hours) when compared in the acute stage of MRI. Researchers conclude that although both coma and PTA are related to brain damage they still reflect disparate patterns of lesions. Thus, PTA assessment remains as a valuable measure by providing additional information concerning the severity of injury (Wilson et al., 1993).

Patients who present with a traumatic brain injury (TMI), are at greatest risk of developing respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), which increases their death rate. The study of this article is to show the comparison of respiratory mechanics and the death rate with patients who present with a TMI and RDS with those patients who have RDS without a TMI, but other medical causes of the RDS. This study was performed in a 14-month period in a general intensive care and teaching unit in Brazil. It looked at patients who were in the ICU due to RDS with or without the cause being a TMI. A total of 85 patients

Colton et al. (2014) research looked at 117 clients who experienced increase intracranial pressure as a result of severe traumatic brain injury. Their research looked at client’s respond to pharmacological interventions and these pharmacological interventions include hypertonic saline, mannitol, propofol, fentanyl, and barbiturate. In their research Colton et al., (2014) found “all treatment resulted in significant intracranial pressure changes after 1 hour or 2 hours except for mannitol and barbiturate administration” (Colton at el., 2014). This finding is significant given that mannitol is used as a first line treatment for management of increased intracranial pressure. The chart below demonstrates how each of these pharmacological interventions decreased intracranial pressure and it allows us to compare each pharmacological intervention to each other. (Colton et al., 2014)

The ICP value is essentially determined and significantly influenced by volume equilibrium among the brain (1,100−1,300 cm3), CSF (130¬¬−150 cm3) and blood contained in intracranial vessels (60−80 cm3). Considering the fixed brain volume, the two most important determined factors of ICP are the nearly constant cerebral blood flow based on a wide range of the mean blood pressures .In addition, unbalance between the production of CSF in brain ventricles and its absorption into the dural venous sinuses leads to the abnormal ICP (Mokri 2001, Popovic et al.

The risk of unplanned perioperative hypothermia is a well-established concept that is often overlooked. Success in preventing perioperative hypothermia depends on factors such as correct measurements of body temperatures and essential warming procedures that are carried out intraoperatively and peri-operatively. This study was conducted in order to compare the reliable esophageal and nasopharyngeal temperatures recorded during 210 minutes of surgery, while mostly looking at the effects that pre-warming has on these temperatures. The study also considered age and weight as factors that affected the core temperatures of individuals. The study divided a group of 52 individuals, who were to receive colorectal surgery, into groups A and B. Nine

The first phase occurs instantly after TBI occurs, causing damage directly to the brain tissue such as hemorrhage, laceration, concussion, or contusion1-3. This damage typically results in irreversibly damage and impaired cerebral blood flow and metabolism1. The reduced blood flow leads to a set of mechanisms that result in increased membrane permeability and edema. Without enough blood flow or oxygen, energy sources in the brain are depleted1. Additionally, a set of hormonal changes occur leading to systemic inflammation and increased metabolic needs3.