Putting Brain Damage On Ice
When someone suffers a heart attack, the lack of blood flow to the brain can cause serious neurological harm. Fortunately for people in Kern County, a new treatment at Memorial can buy them—and their doctors—valuable time, while minimizing damage to the brain. Called "induced hypothermia," cold saline is circulated through a catheter which is inserted into the femoral vein to cool down the body to a chilly 91 degrees. The therapeutic cooling slows trauma by reducing the brain's demand for oxygen and quieting down unwanted stress reactions in tissues.
To go hypothermic, patients need to be fully sedated for 24 hours. No blood is exchanged during the process. Memorial recently acquired two machines to help its patients with this brain-saving technology. The equipment can precisely raise and lower a patient's body temperature, which is far better than simply packing them in ice—the method used in the early days of therapeutic hypothermia.
"Induced hypothermia can assist with neurologic recovery and help preserve brain function," explains Peter Ellis, MD, director of Memorial's Hypothermia Program. "Using the hypothermia machine is better than packing patients in ice because it induces less shivering, and eliminates temperature fluctuations. Once the therapy is complete, we can reverse the process to warm patients up. Results of the treatment can be comparable to those of angioplasty for acute myocardial infarction."
In addition to treating cardiac arrest, Dr. Ellis says induced hypothermia will soon be used to treat other problems, including severe stroke with coma, and heat stroke—a danger that can happen during central California's blistering summers.
