Chill Out to Survive Heart Disease
By: Susan Taylor/Megan Dobbs
Updated: July 14, 2011
Of the 300,000 people in the U.S. who suffer from cardiac arrest each year, fewer than 10% of those victims survive when it occurs outside a hospital. Of those, only a minority recover sufficient brain function to return their lives to normal. A new study shows evidence that using a treatment to effectively cool a patient's body temperature by eight degrees can greatly increase a patient's survival and brain function.
Allen Fields' heart stopped beating, while he was running a half-marathon, last year. But fields still calls it his "lucky day."
"I was fortunate enough to have doctors in the race and doubly fortunate to be a little faster than they were because if they were in front of me, they would've never found me."
Those doctors got Allen's heart beating again.
"When i woke up, i wasn't even aware that that had even occurred," fields said.
And the treatment continued, as doctors cooled his body, to prevent brain damage. Dr. Shawn Evans says the cooling blankets lower the body's temperature by eight degrees. It's called "therapeutic hypothermia", and a new study shows it greatly increases patient survival and brain function.
"And this study showed that about five percent walked out of the hospital and of those, those who had good cognitive outcomes did great," Evans said.
An even newer treatment inserts this catheter directly into a blood vessel to more precisely cool the patient's body.
"Neurologically, I wouldn't have been able to function. So by putting in the hypothermia state, i was able to overcome that," Fields said.
Dr. Evans hopes this new study prompts more hospitals to use these life, and brain-saving treatments.
"That is one of the greatest advents in terms of our care, and improving the chain of survival."
Allen Fields' heart stopped beating, while he was running a half-marathon, last year. But fields still calls it his "lucky day."
"I was fortunate enough to have doctors in the race and doubly fortunate to be a little faster than they were because if they were in front of me, they would've never found me."
Those doctors got Allen's heart beating again.
"When i woke up, i wasn't even aware that that had even occurred," fields said.
And the treatment continued, as doctors cooled his body, to prevent brain damage. Dr. Shawn Evans says the cooling blankets lower the body's temperature by eight degrees. It's called "therapeutic hypothermia", and a new study shows it greatly increases patient survival and brain function.
"And this study showed that about five percent walked out of the hospital and of those, those who had good cognitive outcomes did great," Evans said.
An even newer treatment inserts this catheter directly into a blood vessel to more precisely cool the patient's body.
"Neurologically, I wouldn't have been able to function. So by putting in the hypothermia state, i was able to overcome that," Fields said.
Dr. Evans hopes this new study prompts more hospitals to use these life, and brain-saving treatments.
"That is one of the greatest advents in terms of our care, and improving the chain of survival."
