Cincinnati Sub-Zero
Medical Division
Patient Temperature control education resources

Educational Credits


THERAPEUTIC USES OF HEAT AND COLD
STUDY GUIDE FOR NURSES

Overview
Healthcare professionals use a variety of heating and cooling devices to achieve therapeutic goals, including the local application of heat and cold and generalized warming to prevent perioperative hypothermia. This study guide begins with a review of the physiology of human thermoregulation. Therapeutic uses of localized heat and cold are discussed, with emphasis on the use of heating and cooling pads that contain circulating water. Measures that can be taken to maintain perioperative normothermia are described. Factors contributing to unplanned perioperative hypothermia are listed, and possible adverse outcomes of hypothermia are discussed. Suggestions are offered for temperature monitoring during the perioperative period, and general temperature management strategies are explained. The applications of various active warming and cooling devices are examined, including conductive and convective blankets, fluid warmers, airway heating and humidification, cardiovascular heating/cooling, and ECMO heaters.

This self-study activity is can be used as a reference tool by the learner; continuing nursing education credit is also available.

To receive 2 contact hours, please mail a check for $12.00, with the registration and evaluation forms located on pages 29 and 30 of the PDF to: HealthStream • 2170 S. Parker Rd., Suite 140 • Denver, CO 80231

Click here to download the Study Guide


Links

New England Journal of Medicine
The Journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists
The Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses


Suggested Readings

Jonathan Jagid, MD, Andrea Castelblanco, MD*, and John W. Kuluz, MD*, Head cooling decreases brain temperature after traumatic brain injury, Departments of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics*, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL 33101, 2004.

The Hypothermia after Cardiac Arrest Study Group,
Mild therapeutic hypothermia to improve the neurologic outcome after cardiac arrest, NE Journal of Medicine, 2002 346: 549-556.


Sessler DI, Kurz A, Lenhardt R, Perioperative normothermia to reduce the incidence of surgical-wound infection and shorten hospitalization, NE Journal of Medicine, 1996-2003; 334 (19): 1209-1215. Brief Summary


Baker KZ, Young WL, Deliberate mild intraoperative hypothermia for craniotomy, Anesthesiology, 1994; 81: 361-367.

Marion DW, Obrist WD, et al. The use of moderate therapeutic hypothermia for patients with severe head injuries: a preliminary report, J of Neurology, 1993; 79(3): 354-362.

Yamashia I, Mild hypothermia ameliorated ubiquitin synthesis and prevents delayed neural death in the gerbil hippocampus, Stroke, 1991; 22: 1574-1581.

Murakami W, External Rewarming and Age in Mildly Hypothermic Patients after Cardiac Surgery, Heart and Lung, 1995; 24(5): 2347-2358.

Sanford M, Rewarming Cardiac Surgical Patients: Warm Water vs. Warm Air, American Journal of Critical Care, 1997; 6(1): 39-45.

Michlovitz, Susan L, Thermal Agents in Rehabilitation, F.A. Davis Co., Philadelphia, 1986.

Lehmann, Justus F, Therapeutic Heat and Cold, 3rd Ed., Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore, 1982.

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