ThermoSuit Makes the TOP 5
MedicalDevice-Nework.com Announces 2009 Top 5 Devices
ThermoSuit by Life Recovery Systems makes the top 5 List. Visit this link to read the entire article.
A body-cooling suit
Medical Design Excellence Award winner of 2009, the ThermoSuit System (TSS) from Life Recovery Systems (LRS), is a rapid non-invasive patient cooling device that reduces the risk of brain or heart damage. The company’s founders Robert Freedman Jr and Dr Robert Schock developed the product after realising the existing treatment was inadequate and that rapid cooling could improve outcomes of critically ill patients.
The TSS is designed to be easily and quickly applied by nursing staff and can cool the core temperature of a cardiac arrest, stroke or heart attack victim to 32–34°C in 30 minutes or less. Once cooled the vital organs operate more slowly and need less oxygen, which reduces the chance of brain or heat damage.
Strong clinical results, presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions, demonstrated the positive impact that TSS will have on patients. “We are very happy to see such favourable clinical results in the centres using the ThermoSuit System so far,” says Dr Schock. “This is a fulfillment of the mission Dr Freedman and I have had since founding Life Recovery Systems.”
Back From The Brink!
Dr. Schock Demonstrates The ThermoSuit System
Compliments of: Tina Pttaway
Every year, thousands of Canadians go into sudden cardiac arrest – their hearts simply stop beating. The vast majority die. But for more than a decade, hypothermia has been a proven method of treating patients whose hearts have stopped functioning.
If a heartbeat is reestablished, doctors can bring down the surviving patient’s body temperature by 5 degrees Celsius, and leave them in a chilled state for 24 hours. Then, they slowly warm the patients to normal temperature, and bring them out of their induced coma. What they are discovering is that patients who are chilled have far better outcomes than those patients who are revived from their cardiac arrest but not given access to hypothermic treatment; fewer patients are dying or suffering long-term irreversible damage such as brain damage.
In this documentary that I produced for CBC Radio’s The Current we meet Bill MacDonald, a cardiac arrest survivor, and his devoted friend Ferdy Rochas. And we also meet the talented team of doctors and researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, and at Life Recovery Systems in New Jersey who are doing much to improve the outcomes of patients like Bill.
This documentary received the World Gold Medal at the 2009 New York Festivals in the Health and Medical category.
To listen to the documentary, visit the link and look for the audio button at the bottom of the article, just above the “Tweet This” link. Click Here to listen to the documentary.
Visit ThermoSuit Online HERE
Good HouseKeeping Magazine Highlights The ThermoSuit System
Medical Advances and Breakthroughs
Courtesy: Good HouseKeeping MagazineBy Beth Howard
Excerpt From the article “Medical Advances and Breakthroughs”; January 2010
Code Cool
When a person’s heart stops beating, no blood — and no oxygen — is going to the brain. Cooling the body a few degrees reduces the chance of damage, increasing the odds that the patient will return to a normal life. That’s why accident victims who live through a plunge into a freezing river can survive without neurological problems. But in a hospital, the processes that are used to cool bodies — blowing cold air on patients, or packing them in ice — can take hours, often too long to stop cell death and brain damage. It’s no wonder only a small fraction of cardiac arrest patients whose hearts are restarted regain all their abilities.
“If the stars hadn’t fallen in line on November 11, 2008,” as Cynthia Crawford, 57, puts it, she might not have been in that lucky group. A former psychiatric nurse in Baton Rouge, LA, and a mother of four, Crawford was at New Orleans’s Ochsner Medical Center for tests to see if she was a candidate for a heart transplant. A former smoker who suffered from congestive heart failure, Crawford was using a pacemaker and an implanted defibrillator to keep her heart pumping. But it was growing weak. When a medical resident found her slumped in the hospital garage, he quickly rushed her to the ER. You could call it being in the right place at the right time. Ochsner is one of only about 50 medical facilities that use a novel cooling therapy called the ThermoSuit. This inflatable cocoon-like device sprays the body with hundreds of icy-cold jets of water, reducing a patient’s temperature in about 20 to 40 minutes. “It’s faster than anything previously available,” says Paul McMullan Jr., M.D., an interventional cardiologist at Ochsner; that has translated into far lower rates of brain damage in patients at centers using the device. Crawford doesn’t remember much about the day her heart stopped. But when she woke up in the intensive care unit, she says, “I knew I’d been to hell and back. I learned that they’d had to shock me five times to get my heart going again.” After cooling her body, doctors implanted a heart pump to take over the work of her weakened heart, buying time while she waits for a new one from a donor. But she wouldn’t even be on the transplant list if she hadn’t been lucky enough to be placed in a ThermoSuit. “A nurse on the cardiac unit told me that somebody who comes in like I did usually ends up in a long-term-care facility,” says Crawford. Instead, she has “more energy than ever.” And while the battery for the pump, carried in a vest, is a “little cumbersome,” says Crawford, it hasn’t slowed her down. “I go everywhere — especially if it involves shopping.
ThermoSuit Improves Recovery Odds For Osceola Regional Heart Attack Patients
Giving Patients an Icy Reception
Courtsey: Orlando Medical News, LYNNE JETER
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Thermosuit® Improves Recovery Odds for Osceola Regional Heart Attack Patients
Osceola Regional Medical Center Uses ThermoSuit
OSCEOLA REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER FIRST HOSPITAL IN FLORIDA TO USE THERMOSUIT® FOR HEART ATTACK PATIENTS KISSIMMEE, FL, — As Emergency Department Medical Director for Osceola Regional Medical Center, Brian Baxter, MD, FACEP, doesn’t mind giving heart attack patients an icy reception—if it means improving their chances of a full recovery.
Dr. Baxter is enthusiastic about the Center’s new ThermoSuit® System, introduced in August of this year. “The ThermoSuit allows us to advance the standard of care for cardiac arrest patients who have spontaneous return of circulation and to reduce their neurological impairment,” he said. The technology is used only with patients who have been successfully resuscitated after their heart has stopped.
When a cardiac arrest patient arrives at Osceola Regional, the hospital initiates an ICE Alert. If deemed appropriate, the patient is placed in the ThermoSuit, a non-invasive, portable cooling system that resembles a plastic raft. The FDA-approved device drops the body’s core temperature to between 32 and 34 degrees Celsius within 10 to 30 minutes. Once inside the suit, the patient is covered with a sheet and the system continuously pumps a thin film of ice around the patient’s body. While this is happening, “A probe is placed in the patient’s esophagus to measure their core temperature. The device stops cooling at a certain temperature to prevent the patient from becoming too hypothermic. We then monitor the patient’s temperature for the next 24 hours as well as all of their other vitals,” explained Dr. Baxter.
This rapid cooling improves recovery by minimizing brain and tissue damage. “There is substantial research demonstrating that when a patient survives cardiac arrest, neurological recovery can be significantly improved by decreasing the body temperature and maintaining a reduced temperature for 24 hours,” Dr. Baxter said. Once cooling is completed, the ThermoSuit is removed and the patient may receive additional treatments such as stents or angioplasty. Before launching the ThermoSuit program, Osceola Regional staff members underwent specialized training. The hospital also collaborated with emergency medical service agencies in Kissimmee, St. Cloud and Osceola County to ensure a smooth transition between emergency transport and the Medical Center.
“Once a cardiac patient has been resuscitated, we can immediately begin the cooling process,” Dr. Baxter commented. Many hospitals use other cooling methods, but these have drawbacks. For example, external cooling techniques such as ice packs and cooling blankets, take hours to decrease body temperature. In the meantime, brain cells and neurons are lost, dramatically diminishing a patient’s chances of returning to normal. And invasive cooling methods, such as endovascular cooling catheters and cold saline, tend to have complications.
In the short time since Osceola Regional launched the program, the results have been positive. According to Dr. Baxter, “Two of the three ThermoSuit patients have had full recovery after cardiac arrest and another is improving.” Currently, Osceola Regional is the only hospital in Florida using this technology. “ThermoSuit is the new standard of care for cardiac arrest patients. It fits with Osceola Regional and the Central Florida Cardiac & Vascular Institute,” Dr. Baxter noted.
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About Osceola Regional Medical Center: Osceola Regional Medical Center is a state-of-the-art hospital offering services which include: a 24-hour Emergency Department; 24-hour Obstetrician (OB) Coverage/Baby Suites Maternity Unit; Level II Neonatal Intensive Care Unit; Pediatrics; Accredited Chest Pain Center; Certified Primary Stroke Center; Orthopedic and Spine Center; Wound Healing Center; and the Kissimmee Physical Therapy Center. Also included are complete diagnostic, imaging and testing services in the Osceola Imaging Center and the Breast Care Center. The hospital features a premier multi-million dollar, four-story cardiac care tower housing the Central Florida Cardiac & Vascular Institute. The Institute offers advanced comprehensive cardiac care from diagnostics and treatment, including open-heart and vascular surgery to cardiac rehabilitation. Many of the Institute’s surgeons specialize in minimally invasive heart valve surgeries. Visit www.HeartHappensHere.com for more information.
Understanding Therapeutic Hypothermia
Check out this blog if you would like to learn and understand the value of Therapeutic Hypothermia.
Paramedicine 101, thank you for sharing such important information! http://paramedicine101.blogspot.com/2009/09/induced-hypothermia-part-v.html
Therapeutic Hypothermia After Cardiac Arrest
Therapeutic hypothermia after cardiac arrest: Unintentional overcooling is common using ice packs and conventional cooling blankets
Courtesy of: Acute Care Inc. Posted on September 5, 2009 by coptermedic From PubMed:
OBJECTIVES: Although therapeutic hypothermia for cardiac arrest survivors has been shown to improve neurologically intact survival, optimal methods to ensure controlled induction and maintenance of cooling are not clearly established.
Precise temperature control is important to evaluate because unintentional overcooling below the consensus target range of 32-34 degrees C may place the patient at risk for serious complications. We sought to measure the prevalence of overcooling (<32 degrees C) in postarrest survivors receiving primarily noninvasive cooling.
DESIGN: Retrospective chart review of postarrest patients.
SETTING: Three large teaching hospitals.
PATIENTS: Cardiac arrest survivors receiving therapeutic hypothermia.
INTERVENTIONS: Charts were reviewed if primarily surface cooling was used with a target temperature goal between 32 degrees C and 34 degrees C.
MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Of the 32 cases reviewed, overcooling lasting for >1 hr was identified as follows: 20 of 32 patients (63%) reached temperatures of <32 degrees C, 9 of 32 (28%) reached temperatures of <31 degrees C, and 4 of 32 (13%) reached temperatures of <30 degrees C. Of those with overcooling of <32 degrees C, 6 of 20 (30%) survived to hospital discharge, whereas of those without overcooling, 7 of 12 (58%) survived to hospital discharge (p = not significant). CONCLUSIONS: The majority of the cases reviewed demonstrated unintentional overcooling below target temperature. Improved mechanisms for temperature control are required to prevent potentially deleterious complications of more profound hypothermia.
Video Testimonial
Watch what people are saying about ThermoSuit!
CentraState uses new body cooling device on first emergency patient
Technology helps recovery of cardiac arrest patients
CentraState’s Emergency Department (ED) in Freehold Township now offers a new rapid, body-cooling device for cardiac arrest patients to help them recover with minimal or no damage to the brain. Clinicians in the ED successfully used the device for the first time earlier this month on a 55-year-old male patient.
The emergency department is the first in New Jersey using the new ThermoSuit by Life Recovery Systems. Clinicians use the system to rapidly decrease a patient’s core temperature to around 92 degrees which slows blood flow to the heart and brain. “When the body is cooled down, the heart and brain require less oxygen to continue functioning,” says M. Michael Jones, MD, chair, Emergency Services, CentraState Medical Center. “This helps prevent further damage to the brain and creates better opportunity for healing with favorable outcomes.”
At CentraState, the ThermoSuit is used for patients after they’ve experienced cardiac arrest and have been revived, but are not responsive. Cardiac arrest is a condition in which the heart stops pumping blood as a result of irregular heart rhythms. According to the American Heart Association, 95 percent of people who suffer from cardiac arrest outside of a medical facility die before they reach the hospital.
The device is an inflatable pool that wraps around a patient’s body and then constantly pumps ice water across the body to remove surface heat, decreasing the body’s temperature quickly. Any time throughout the process, CPR and/or a defibrillator can be used if needed without disruption of the cooling. The “suit” is computer controlled and shuts down once the target temperature is reached. To maintain hypothermia, a simple iced saline infusion is used, and a patient can stay cold for around 24 hours.
The ThermoSuit can obtain the desired temperature between 93 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit in only 27 minutes. Past cooling methods took up to two hours and 43
minutes. The faster a hypothermic state is reached, the greater chance there is of preventing permanent damage to the heart and brain.
The non-invasive procedure has no reported complications and is the top in its category for reducing core body temperature.
Patient satisfaction at CentraState’s Emergency Department has ranked at the 96th percentile or higher for seven of the last eight quarters, according to a national patient satisfaction measurement firm. CentraState has one of the busiest emergency departments in Central new Jersey, caring for more than 60,000 patients per year.
— ANDY LAGOMARSINO, NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
The FASTEST & SAFEST Patient Cooling System
The ThermoSuit® Advantage
Easy to Use: The system is portable and easy to set up and initiate by the nursing staff. On-screen graphics display the current status of the system and the progress of the cooling process. When finished, the suit is discarded.
Fast: In a matter of minutes, the entire body is cooled to the optimal target temperature. Non-Invasive Surface cooling is achieved by circulating ice water directly over the patient’s skin.
Maximum Control: Level control valve automatically monitors fluid level and purges coolant when target temperature is achieved.
Mistake-Free: Automatic safety checks are an integral part of the design to eliminate errors, and the possibility of over-cooling. Temperature probe monitors and controls the patient’s temperature during the entire cooling process.
No Bed Sores: Patients are not tied to the system. The patented inner sling internal support surface inflates to surround and cradle the patient’s body.
Easy Access to Patient: Removable top sheet contains integrated flow channels and allows access to the patient during the cooling process.
