Induced Hypothermia
Hypothermia is most commonly thought of as a condition that occurs due to cold and/or wet weather, but induced hypothermia has quite an unusual health benefit for cardiac patients. After cardiac arrest, induced hypothermia has been found to reduce brain damage and to increase the patient's chance of survival. It may sound unusual to induce hypothermia in a patient, but in a cardiac patient, it can save their life and give them back their health. What occurs during induced hypothermia?
Induced hypothermia has mixed results in treating severe medical conditions like heart problems, brain injury, and bleeding ulcers. It seems the severity of the condition and the timeliness of the treatment, along with the patient's over all health, work together to determine the success of the treatment.
Induced hypothermia can be completed in many different ways. One way to induce hypothermia in a patient is to rapidly infuse the veins with ice-cold fluids. Rapidly cooling the internal organs by doing a naso-gastric lavage with ice-cold water. Specialized vascular catheters can be used to rapidly cool the body, as well as external cooling with special cooling blankets or ice packs. Any of these methods may be used after cardiac arrest to help decrease the damage to the patient's brain and to increase their odds of survival. So why does induced hypothermia help in post cardiac arrest care?
Cooling the body helps to decrease the function of the brain, which means that the brain needs less oxygen and nutrients. This helps to decrease the damage that may occur during cardiac arrest because of decreased blood, and therefore oxygen, flow. The induced hypothermia helps decrease cell damage to the brain's cells, and thus, causes a better outcome for the patient.
The practice of induced hypothermia gives the body a chance to heal itself, without much of the damage than can occur when the body is under full function. This is similar to when a child is saved from a cold river or lake and returns to full function with seemingly no brain damage. The cold temperature slows the body's processes, which gives a better outlook for continued health for cardiac patients and more.
Another use I've seen induced hypothermia applied to is bleeding ulcers that won't stop with traditional methods. In the early '60s my dad had a duodenal ulcer that bled so much the doctors decided to try this "new" approach of lowering his gastric temperature, essentially putting his stomach into stasis, so his body could heal itself without the pressures of maintaining a regularly functioning body. The damage to his duodenum was severe enough this technique didn't work, but I can see how it might have if they'd tried it sooner (the final solution here was to remove the lower part of his stomach and his duodenum).
And yet another use for induced hypothermia include treatment for a head injury. This gives the brain time to heal without having to carry out many of the natural processes, and it decreases the damage that can occur after a head injury. Some studies have found, though, that induced hypothermia can cause more negative health reactions than the good it does. These health symptoms include pneumonia, heart complications, and circulation problems. Studies are still underway to determine the exact benefits that induced hypothermia can have on head injuries.
Induced hypothermia can have significant health benefits for several different conditions. Learn more about this treatment if you doctor is suggesting it so you better understand more it. Induced hypothermia can give you a better chance of having a healthy outlook after cardiac arrest, head injury, or other health problems.
