Chapter 69: Nursing Management: Emergency, Terrorism, and Disaster Nursing

Hypothermia: marked cooling of core temperature that is below the required normal for normal metabolism and body functions. This is generally considered to be 95.0’F. Produces depression of the central nervous and respiratory systems, vasoconstriction, alterations in microcirculation and coagulation, and ischemic tissue damage.

Your body goes through hypothermia when the body temperature is under 95 F or 35 C. When experiencing hypothermia the organs, heart, and other body functions don’t work properly. Hypothermia can lead to death if left untreated for a certain amount of time. Like frostbite, hypothermia is caused from being exposed to dangerously cold weather. Signs that you’ve caught hypothermia are shivering, confusion/memory loss, weakness, slurred speech, loss of consciousness, and clumsiness. When the body catches hypothermia he/she isn’t aware of it since the since the signs gradually affect the body more and more. If the body is suspected to have hypothermia call emergency services immediately to cancel any life threatening

Immediately life threatening A patient with chest pain, severe blood loss, MVA, sepsis. These types of patient are prompt to deteriorate, and their life could be at risk if not treated within 10 min of arrival in ED. (Basnet, Bhandari and Moore, 2012)

Purpose: The purpose of this speech is to educate and inform my audience of the risks inherent from unintended hypothermia. I’m eager to alert perioperative staff of the potential dangers as well as the preventative measures that can be taken in order to avoid complications associated with unintended hypothermia. My central idea is hypothermia management saves lives.

Triage is usually the first step of the emergency room and helps determine severity of each patient. Once through triage, the patient

He then took samples of urine, blood, and mucous as body temperatures lowered. Through this tortured, Rascher used the data to create the hypothermia treatment called "active rapid rewarming." More than 90 people lost their lives for this medical advancement (Adams).

A patient who becomes unresponsive may be experiencing arrhythmia. If a patient has fainted and there is no response immediately notify the physician also provide oxygen. loosen any tight clothing, cover the patient with a blanket for warmth. Once the emergency passes,obtain a set of vital signs and document all activities in the patient's medical

Shivering is an indication that hypothermia is on the rise (Giesbrecht and Wilkerson 24). In order to increase Elaine’s body heat, her body resorted to shivering. When shivering, “80 percent of the consumed energy is given off as heat allowing for the heat production to be five times as much as the heat production of the body at rest,” (Giesbrecht and Wilkerson 24). This is able to happen because her skeletal muscle is able to expand and contract to allow for normal body activities to

Basically, the treatment of therapeutic hypothermia can be separated into three parts: induction, maintenance and rewarming (Walters et al., 2011). The process of hypothermia induction if often questioned. Is there an optimal time to begin mild therapeutic hypothermia that brings the most benefit? The data from the past experiments suggest that mild therapeutic hypothermia should be commenced within a short time from clinical comprehensive evaluation that suggests patient’s eligibility for this type of a treatment. Various animal studies suggest that early cooling becomes superior to delayed cooling because of its benefits on general outcome after suffering cardiac arrest (Janata & Holzer, 2009). According to Wolff et al. (2009), successful and early achievement of mild therapeutic hypothermia is one of the main elements contributing to the final neurological outcome. Therefore, the need for implementing new measures appears to be more than natural. In this experiment, there were forty-nine consecutive patients that were treated with mild hypothermia after suffering cardiac arrest. A closed-loop endovascular system proved to be the most suitable choice for achievement of rapid body cooling while allowing more precise control of mild therapeutic hypothermia. While the researcher team examined the correlation between the different time intervals of hypothermia achievement, it also closely monitored levels of neurone specific enolase,

Lowered body temperature and stiffness are also expected to appear, followed later by bloating and signs of decomposition” (Kastenbaum, Page 42). However, even with these listed, it is still quite possible for a person not be dead, if they’ve been electrocuted, suffered from a heart attack, or drowned. So, there is a list of prerequisites that the medical field must follow in order to declare someone

Suffocating is very dangerous and can show signs of damage hours or even days after the incident. Drowning victims can suffer headaches much longer after the fact.

Factors that are indications of a crisis include dehydration, infection and cold weather, but in many patients the exact cause is unknown. Awareness of these factors should be known by the patient. Patients with sickle cell anemia have a reduced ability to conserve water and a defect in renal concentrating. They should be told to wear warm clothing during cold weather, hydrate in hot weather and limit exercising to avoid fatigue and dehydration. In addition, avoiding hypoxemia before anesthesia or when a procedure involves hypertonic radiographic

Took off his wet clothes: if the patients have wet clothes, should be off or cut off. Pay attention to the action in the process of strip gently. Covered with a blanket or clothing: patients with cover to keep warm, pay attention to the head when leakage only face. Don't let the noise of patients to sleep on the cold ground, cold ground will keep heat loss. Use your body to help him to keep warm, take off clothes, direct skin contact is best; Pay attention to use a blanket or clothing to cover each other. People with severe hypothermia may appear heart, breathing a cardiac arrest. If found patients stop breathing or very weak, is about to stop when, should start cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). If the patient is awake, but also can swallow, can give him to drink some warm sugar water. Pay attention to cannot drink and drink coffee. If conditions permit, can use hot water bag some warm water, increase the patient's temperature. But be sure to pay attention to, can only use hot water bag to the head and neck, chest, abdomen, heating, cannot to limbs heating. To limbs heating can make cold blood flowing to the heart, brain, the body core temperature drops, and even

The human body has several amazing systems that help keep us running smoothly through varied conditions. Our body has functions that automatically watch, adjust and maintain our necessary systems while not our even knowing it. Breathing, heart rate, weight management and blood pressure are all maintained subconsciously. Shivering is simply one of these functions our body makes use of to keep up our blood heat at a temperature of 98.6°F (37°C).

Triage derived from a French word meaning “to sort.” Triage is a golden assessment tool used to determined patient acuity (Lewis, Heitkemper, Bucher, & Harding, 2014). The process of triage works by allowing treatment to the patient of medical urgent conditions before other patients. In order to determine the order of care to healthcare system use the Emergency severity Index which is a five-level triage that categorize patients according to the acuity of their illness and need for resources (Lewis, Heitkemper, Bucher, & Harding, 2014). The five-levels vary from level one which requires immediate care to level five whom is a patient doesn’t require immediate attention (Lewis, Heitkemper, Bucher, & Harding, 2014).