Resp Care
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Cardiac arrest is a common and lethal medical problem; each year more than half a million people in the United States and Canada suffer cardiac arrest treated by emergency medical personnel or in-hospital providers. Of those who survive to hospital admission or suffer in-hospital arrest, 40-60% die prior to discharge. Neurologic injury is the major source of morbidity and mortality after recovery of spontaneous circulation. ⋯ Clear consensus statements recommend that unconscious adult patients with spontaneous circulation after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest should be cooled if the initial rhythm was ventricular fibrillation, and that therapeutic hypothermia should be considered for other patients (other rhythms or in-hospital arrest). However, the position that all patients should be cooled following cardiac arrest is probably too broad, given the lack of studies on patients with non-ventricular-fibrillation rhythms, in-hospital arrest, or non-cardiac causes of arrest. Further research is needed to determine the broadest application of moderate therapeutic hypothermia.