Medical Procedures
Hypothermia may help reduce brain injury effects
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According to experts, more than 1 million children sustain brain injuries every year, and approximately 165,000 are hospitalized because of their injuries. Children may sustain brain injuries due to a variety of causes, including accidents or other trauma, infection, lack of oxygen, and carbon monoxide poisoning.
Typical problems for children with brain injuries include motor disabilities, difficulty paying attention, difficulty with recent memory or new learning, inability to follow thought sequencing, difficulty with abstract thinking, impulsivity and poor judgment. These problems may not be visibly evident until the child reaches a certain stage of development, which could be years after the brain injury. Severe brain injuries have much more serious consequences.
“One of the big problems with trauma to the brain is the swelling that occurs inside the head. Brain swelling causes secondary injury. It limits the blood supply to the brain,” said Dr. John Kuluz, of the University of Miami. Doctors are now using a controlled form of hypothermia to treat children with severe brain injuries.
Doctors use special blankets and ice packs for the head to decrease an unconscious patient's body temperature to about 91 degrees. Currently, at the University of Miami, doctors continuously cool patients for 48 hours. It takes between two and four hours to get the temperature down to the desired temperature. Two hoses in the "cooling" blankets push water in and drain it out the other side. A unit hooked up to the blanket measures the patient's temperature and regulates the temperature of the water that's being fed through the blanket to keep the patient at the right temperature.
"If you sprain your ankle, there's all this inflammation and swelling so what do you do? You take an ice pack and you put it on the ankle. When the brain is bruised and starts to swell, it can't just swell as much as it wants. It's in a closed box. When it starts to swell, the pressure increases a lot. Hypothermia helps to reduce the swelling. It helps to reduce inflammation,” Kuluz said. "What I'm hoping is that it will improve the outcome. So, children who are cooled will have a better outcome, will improve faster, get back to school faster, get out of the hospital faster, and get back to their families faster."
Kuluz is a part of a larger network of researchers at the University of Miami who are studying hypothermia.
Reprinted with permission. Copyright ©2005TWEAN News Channel of Austin, L.P. d.b.a. News 8 Austin