Cooling Down the Heart
by Anne Kelly – KFYR-TV
Posted on 2/11/2009
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The cold may make you shiver, but in some cases, cold can save your life.
Heart attacks can kill.
Some doctors are pushing for more hospitals to implement what you might call a “cold-hearted” procedure that can improve the odds of survival.
The procedure that can give some cardiac arrest victims a fighting chance is regular protocol at only 20-percent of hospitals in the U.S., even though it`s effectiveness has been proven time and time again.
Alvina Spier remembers May 17, 2007 like it was yesterday, because it was the day she thought she lost Ralph, her husband of nearly 55 years, for good.
“He went into cardiac arrest, he died, he was dead when he hit the floor,” says Spier.
Ralph wasn`t dead, but Dr. Lloyd Blake say he likely would have been if they hadn`t turned to therapeutic hypothermia. A procedure that lowered his body temperature from the normal 98.6 degrees to 92 degrees, far below what`s considered a survivable temperature.
Doctors aren`t sure why lowering a person`s body temp increases the chance of survival, but they say those who are out cold for 24 hours are 20-percent more likely to survive the trauma and still be alive six months later..
“There`s probably some degree of inflammation from the injury, probably the cooling stops the inflammation response,” says Dr. Lloyd Blake, of St. Alexius Intensive Care Unit. “But there`s probably a million other things that go on that we have no idea about. What we do know is that it works.”
And it works fairly quickly, with the help of some cooling components..
“The blanket is basically composed of channels, so that when the water is pumped through, 90-percent of the blanket is filled with cold water and in conjunction with ice packs we can cool the patient down in one to two hours,” Dr. Blake says.
“You can`t imagine how cold he was, then they warmed him up,” says Spier. And she says, he was back to normal, asking for the rodeo schedule while he was still lying in his hospital bed.
Only about 20-percent of cardiac arrest patient are candidates for therapeutic hypothermia. For one thing, a patient has to be unconscious to have the procedure done. And the heart needs to be shocked back into working order within 30 minutes.