Therapeutic Hypothermia Cool Way to Treat Cardiac Patients

Chilling a patient to the bone would seem to be dubious therapy, but doctors increasingly are refining that strategy to treat some cardiac arrest patients.

The process, called therapeutic hypothermia, targeted temperature management or code chill, is used at large hospitals in Omaha, Lincoln and nationwide. It’s evolving, though, and a 2013 study prompted the Nebraska Medical Center to modify its use of the procedure.

The chilling strategy exemplifies how medical techniques morph over time, and how they are interpreted in different ways from one physician to the next. That, physicians say, is part of the challenge and art of medicine.

Dr. Bryan Krajicek, medical director of the Methodist Hospital ICU and Laura Lambert, a patient who was treated with therapeutic hypothermia in July, speak to the benefits of this treatment.

Omaha World-Herald: Therapeutic hypothermia is a cool but still evolving way to keep hearts  beating