Cardiac arrest claims the lives of hundreds of thousands of people each year. Cardiac arrest can occur both outside of the hospital and in the hospital. Outside of hospital cardiac arrest is associated with a lower survivor rate. Immediate response is necessary in order to increase the chance of survival. According to the American Heart Association, 359,400 people experienced out of hospital cardiac arrest in 2013 with only a 9.5% survival rate, while 209,000 experienced in hospital cardiac arrest with a survival rate of 23.9% in adults and 40.2% in children (American Heart Association, 2015).
When a person experiences cardiac arrest, their heart unexpectedly stops beating. The heart’s electrical system suddenly malfunctions and is not able to pump oxygenated blood to the body’s vital organs. Life saving measures are initiated in an attempt to restart the heart’s electrical system. Once return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) is achieved, efforts to improve neurological recovery may be initiated. Therapeutic hypothermia is one intervention that has been shown to improve neurological outcomes for comatose victims of cardiac arrest (Field, et al., 2010). Hypothermia reduces cerebral oxygen consumption and suppresses the effects of the damaging chemical cascades initiated by reperfusion, the so called …show more content…
The Hypothermia after Cardiac Arrest Study Group (HACA) was a completed in Europe in 2002. HACA was a large randominzed contolled study which enrolled 275 patients from 9 European hospitals (Lee & Asare, 2010). Mild hypothermia was compared to normothermia in patients with return of spontaneous circulation following cardiac arrest (Lee & Asare, 2010). The outcomes of the study included favorable neurological outcomes in 55% of the hypothermia group compared to only 39% in the normothermia group (Lee & Asare,