Devices

Here is a look at a few companies providing devices to induce hypothermia:

(of course the simpler method of using ice packs and saline to cool patients is also used)

Medivance ArcticGel Pads: (cooling pads on applied to patients skin)

http://www.medivance.com/html/products_arcticgel.htm

Intravascular Temperature Management (IVTM™) (cools patient directly through venous system)

http://www.alsius.com/products/

Innercool (provides devices utilizing both methods)

http://www.innercool.com/

Therapeutic Hypothermia Following Cardiac Arrest

I’ve fallen somewhat behind on my blog posts but have done a good bit of reading in regards to my topic stating out with simple newspaper articles and progressing to medical journals. My chosen topic is therapeutic hypothermia, a technique in which patients body temperatures are reduced by for an extended period of time followed by gradual re-warming with the hopes of reducing brain damage caused by the hypoxia experienced in cardiac arrest. This topic has particular interest to me having worked as an EMT in NY the last few years. New York City has seen the establishment of EMS protocols regarding therapeutically hypothermia in the last year and the goal of my paper will be will be to analyze from an engineering perspective the concepts behind and efficacy of both the technique as a whole and the different methods used to induce it.

Structure

For my Structure I chose my dorm room lamp. Its Over a 1 meter in length plugs into standard 120volt wall socket and provides light with a 10watt compact florescent bulb. I analyzed it over the meter, centimeter and millimeter scale lengths. At the one meter scale you have the lamp as a whole its wooden frame and stand which holds it off the ground and its power cord which draws energy from the wall and up through its frame. Power is drawn up to the section I analyzed on the next scale level the head, the section in which the primary job of the lamp is done. Here we have the shade to defuse the light it produces and the socket which connects the lamp as a whole to its most central object and the object which I looked at for the next scale level the bulb. The bulb is the most significant piece of the lamp. Like in a tree where the primary act of absorbing energy from the sun is done in the leaves so is the primary job of a lamp, producing light, done in the bulb. Yet, like a leaf the bulb is useless on its own it must be connected back to larger structure to fulfill its assigned task. Like a leaf it must be held off the ground by larger structural frame work to be effective and like a leaf it must be connected to a circulatory frame work to take in and release energy it need to function. The interdependence of structures is clear a power cord, a lamp shade or even a bulb have no utility on their own, but when combined together they can work to their full potential evenly disturbing light throughout a room.