'Cold Body' Not A Corpse--Nashville Puts Victims on Ice

When a person's blood runs cold, we normally don't think of it as a good thing.  Therapeutic hypothermia, however---a treatment gaining popularity in Nashville--should change our idea of what constitutes a healthy body temperature.  In the case of heart attack, it turns out the best thing may be to lower a patient's thermometer reading.  

If the victim is comatose, ice can be used to bring the blood to about 33 degrees celsius (90-92 fahrenheit).  This creates a sort of hibernation effect--requiring less oxygen from a cardiovascular system that is already having difficulty supplying it.  Brain damage (which normally occurs during unconsciousness after a heart attack) is reduced by this chilling of the blood.

Inducing hypothermia may seem counter-intuitive.  When we find someone laying immobile--unable to generate body heat--our instinct is to cover them with a blanket.  But to informed emergency medical respondents, keeping their cool may mean keeping the victim cool as well.  

Still, it’s creepy.  “Patients feel pretty cold to the touch when you’re used to a baseline temperature of 98,” says Dr. Chace T. Carpenter of Baptist Hospital.  “I think the shivering," says cardiologist P. Robert Myers of Centennial Heart, "is harder on the people looking at the patients than the patients themselves."  

Since 2008, Nashville hospitals have been getting more comfortable with giving their customers the cold treatment, after the New England Journal of Medicine published a report in February of 2002.  Implementation of this technique began Tennessee at about the same time as other states, while some are yet to get with the program.   

Though the procedure is modern, it merely discovered the ancient sensibility of our Smoky Mountain bears in winter.  “This is not rocket science at all,” says Sheldon Dreaddy, Vanderbilt LifeFlight flight nurse.  Carpenter adds, “It’s not very high-tech, and it’s therefore not really an expensive therapy."  In today's economy, that's pretty cool.


(written for Nashville Examiner by A. M. Hendron)