FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – When it comes to protecting the brain after a cardiovascular event, timing is important, and so is temperature. This is why some hospitals employ a cooling technique to help preserve brain function after the crisis has passed.
Sherrice Ann Martin was just 28 years old when she was diagnosed with high blood pressure. The condition runs in her family.
“I thought it was something I could cure, like something that would go away but apparently not,” she said.
Although she did what she could to control it, Martin went into cardiac arrest in August. She was clinging to life when she was hospitalized.
“The day I got in there the doctor told my husband, ‘You need to make alternate plans because this doesn’t look good at all,’” Martin said.
Specialists at Broward Health Medical Center initiated what they call “code ice,” targeted temperature management to cool the body.
“The cooling process decreases the chemical reaction that starts to go when someone has a cardiopulmonary arrest and has lack of oxygen to the brain because of the fact that they did not have circulation and they received CPR to keep them going,” Dr. Violet McCormack, a cardiologist, said.
Targeted temperature management can be done both externally with a cooling blanket and internally with a catheter placed in one of the major vessels of the body.
“The cooling blanket actually cools the external temperature quicker but we felt that cooling the patient from internally we would have a better monitored or better achievement of what the inside temperature would be,” McCormack said.
Martin went through several procedures during a month-long stay in the hospital and is making a slow but steady recovery.
“It’s just a change of life you know and I’ve got a scar to show it, you know the scars are what makes us, the battle of life,” Martin said.
Studies have shown that targeted temperature management is an integral component in improving patient survival and neurological outcomes.