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Therapeutic Hypothermia Essay

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Not Dead…Till You’re Warm and Dead
Charging to 200....Stand clear…Shocking! CPR....EMS providers experience the adrenaline and rush of a patient in cardiac arrest. Trying to bring dead back to life is not a simple task by far, especially with the limitations and resources of the field. But, what happens after the patient makes it to definitive care? Annually, around 300,000 adults in the United States experience out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (AHA), and EMS providers only see the results of the short term survival of the patient, but rarely the actual patient care and recovery after an arrest. Patients undergo intense, aggressive treatment and recovery measures in the hospital post-code. These patients have a variety of treatment regimens …show more content…

It is a beneficial treatment that should be implemented as early in patient care as possible, such as, within the EMS system. Through the last century this therapy has been accepted and rejected by many medical professionals. Since medicine is an ever-changing field, future research and practice of hypothermia will dictate if this therapy is more beneficial than harmful, and maybe one day could be a permanent major role, or it may never be used again. Hypothermia has been proved to decrease neurological impairment after cardiac arrest, but also has many limitations that can occur. A major limitation of this therapy is, if continued care cannot be guaranteed by receiving hospitals, therapeutic hypothermia is irrelevant for EMS to initiate. Likewise, if hypothermia is not begun in the field by EMS, then the receiving facilities now will have a delayed time in starting the therapy and anoxic brain injury could have already occurred. EMS agencies can drive the implementation of therapeutic hypothermia in the medical field. This therapy allows EMS providers to have a major role in the outcome of a cardiac arrest patient’s recovery and neurological outcome. With the progression of research and practice, medicine is evolving day after day, and patient mortality and morbidity have decreased over the years. Although, cardiac arrest patients have a poor …show more content…

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