Therm Aid Thorax Thermal Blanket: Reducing the Risk of Hypothermia
Why it is important to keep the injured person warm:
In recent years through research medical experts have become more aware of the effect that even a mild hypothermia can have on the patient’s chance of survival.
Hypothermia is a condition in which a body's temperature drops from the normal 38˚ to below 35˚. If the temperature drops to 32˚, or below this temperature, the patient becomes unconscious most likely followed by no movement and/ or pulse.
Research has shown that:
Trauma patients are at high risk of hypothermia. Blood loss and reduced blood circulation caused by muscle and nerve damages combined with the low outdoor temperature are contributing causes of death.
Hypothermia reduces blood's ability to coagulate. This increases haemorrhage and the patient has higher risk of dying because of internal bleeding.
American research has shown that in case patients are exposed to a mild hypothermia during surgery, between 34-36 degrees, their haemorrhage increases by 16% for each degree the temperature falls.
Swedish research show, among other things, that 98 % of the trauma patients had a temperature below 36 degrees regardless of season, and that in particular children and older people had difficulties in adjusting the temperature.
Studies have also shown that hypothermia influences the patient's condition and affects many body systems. This contributes to complicate the illness or the injury, causing longer hospital stays, more suffering for the patients and increased costs.
In the United States approx. 150,000 people die from trauma on an annual basis, of which 700 deaths are caused by hypothermia corresponding to 0.47%. Worldwide approx. 5.8 million people die from their injuries. All trauma centres are now aware of the problem related to reduced temperature. Therefore it is important for the ambulance corps/emergency staff to keep the patients warm and minimise hypothermia.
Hypothermia is especially seen with people influenced by alcohol, athletes, in drowning accidents, with sick people, in trauma accidents and with burns patients.
Clinical classification of hypothermia:
- Mild hypothermia: the patient has a body temperature at 35 degrees, the patient is awake, but has problems with coagulation when bleeding, and the patient's condition deteriorates by further cooling.
- Moderate hypothermia: the patient is unconscious, has a pulse and a temperature below 32 degrees.
- Severe hypothermia: the patient has no pulse and a temperature below 32 degrees.
Why Thorax is important in order to protect the patient:
The body's own defence against hypothermia is to ensure the vital organs (in cases of severe hypothermia arms and legs do not matter).
The medical and surgical treatment for hypothermia is to put hot fluid into the body’s cavities, to ensure the patient inhales hot air and to heat up the blood.
Doctors only heats up the blood where there is circulation, otherwise they could inflict further harm on the patient and risk that the warmest blood flowed out to less important organs such as arms and legs. Or they could risk making the cells die, because when you heat up the different body parts, oxygen demand would increase in those areas and there would be no oxygen to the areas without circulation.
Today there are many good possibilities of helping these difficult patients in emergency services, but in practice the emergency services often forget to make a good and effective cold wrap.
In practice, the wrapping of the patient is made using an ordinary blanket or a thin foil blanket, which sometimes can be difficult to manage under poor weather conditions. Likewise, it is difficult for a paramedic to make an effective treatment and to monitor the patient having to work with loose blankets which cannot be fastened on the patient. In particular, unconscious patients are very difficult to wrap.
Why the emergency services forget to perform a good wrap:
- Wrapping is sometimes difficult
- Takes a lot of time
- Complicates patient care
- The observation time deteriorates
- Is too time-consuming in stressful situations
Demands for the Therm Aid cold wrap product which must be
- Quick to use and efficient
- Durable
- Able to stick firmly to the patient in case of poor weather conditions
- Easy to loosen and secure again in connection with the further treatment
- Able to keep the body heat better
- Ready for use
- Available in different sizes
- Made as a disposable material
- Able to remain on the patient when he or she is moved
- Able to give the ambulance men more time for paramedic treatment
- Able to increase the survival chance of the patient
Thorax Thermal Blanket has very good thermal and insulating ability compared to a thin foil blanket.
Therm Aid blanket:
The design of the wrapping method is innovative and provides a better certainty of a correct treatment in the early stage. The blanket is pre-prepared with slits to fit around the patient's chest, groin and face. The blanket is more durable, and specifically designed for sealing of trauma patients on a long backboard. The head is not fully protected by the blanket to allow for the paramedics' observation of the patient. Similarly, it is possible to make working space when making free airways (venting) and intubation.
The paramedic may deliver electroshocks to a patient when the patient is wrapped in the blanket, however, the chest should be exposed. Help staff and other paramedics shall, of course as standard routine procedure, move away from the blanket when the shock is released. The shock is made with DC. The current will flow from electrode to electrode. If the patient has been wet, he or she must, of course, be wiped before electrodes are attached. A thin layer of varnish is applied to each side of the blanket foil.
The blanket has Velcro strip for reclosing and attachment when further treatment is required. The advantages of the blanket is that the paramedics do not need to spend much time wrapping the patient, but can use the time on more relevant tasks such as observation and treatment of the patient.
The blanket comes in three sizes for children, junior and adult patients respectively.
At larger damage sites, waiting patients with non-critical wounds can wear the blanket as prevention against hypothermia.
Also the hospital staff is able to quickly move trauma patients directly into a CT scanner, without the patient getting exposed to additional risk of chilling. The blanket has been tested in the CT scanner.
After use, the blanket is disposed of as hospital waste to protect patients and hospital staff against poor hygiene and infection sources.
