Saturday, February 27, 2010

Therapeutic Hypothermia - The New Treatment for Cardiac Arrest

I've been hearing a lot about this new innovative treatment called therapeutic hypothermia for cardiac arrest but also in treating non-bleeding strokes and brain injuries.  So I decided to put on my investigative cap and go looking for more details.

It turns out that the technique has been in testing for years but in more recent years, they have now determined that moderate hypothermia can reverse or at least stop the effects caused by cardiac arrest and/or stroke whereas before they were using deep hypothermia.  This technique is showing great promise in the area of brain injury as well as birth asphyxia, thus reducing the complications of cerebral palsy in infants.

For more information, see the entire article but the most popular mode of therapy at the moment seems to be the Arctic Sun device, which is being used with great success. 

In a nation where more than 300,000 people suffer cardiac arrest per year and only about 10% survive coming home from the hospital, this could be a medical miracle!

Therapeutic-Hypothermia-How-It-Is-Saving-Lives

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