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Hypothermic Success
November 9, 2008 |
It was the warm weather that drew Nora Edgely to Southwest Florida. But after a
heart attack put Nora into a life-threatening coma it would be cold temperatures
that would save her life.
Her daughter Jacqueline Brahm says, “The doctors would talk to me about odds for
normal life and that if she’d come around there would not be much hope of mental
capacity.”
Dr. Kenneth Tolep is a Pulmonary Specialist with Lee Memorial Health System. He says Nora was “completely unresponsive and in fact the initial doctors who saw her
thought that the initial chances of her waking up were very slim.”
But Nora’s family and physicians had hope. They decided to try hypothermic intervention.
Using packed ice and cold saline solutions, they kept Nora’s body temperature just
a few degrees above freezing. The goal was to save her brain until she woke up from
the coma, then physicians would be able to save her heart.
Within days she began to show signs of the Nora they once knew. Jacqueline says,
“She had the tubes in and I kept saying to her it’s ok, it’s ok, don’t try to talk,
I’m here. I said to her, hey mom how are you doing, she said, I’m ok. I went to
the nurse’s station and I said, my mom spoke she spoke to me. So they go, she’s
been talking all day we told her stop talking, you have tubes in your mouth.” Along
with her sense of humor, Nora’s mind and memories are intact. Her family and physicians
believe the cold was crucial to her cure.
Dr. Tolep says, “It’s a great result. Not only did she regain the use of her arms
and legs but she regained her sense of humor.”
Hypothermic intervention is most often used for cardiac patients like Nora. Physicians
are currently looking for ways to expand hypothermic intervention to help cure and
prevent new injuries or illnesses. |
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