Despite massive investments in research and technology

cooling therapy catches on

Nurse researcher Marian Leary applies a cooling wrap on research assistant David Fried during a body cooling for trauma patients demonstration at the Hospital of the University of moncler womens jackets Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, June 3, 2010. REUTERS/Tim Shaffer

At 58, he had arrived at work feeling fit and healthy. cheap moncler sale As he stepped into the elevator at De Lage Landen Financial Services in Wayne, Pennsylvania, he had no reason to suspect he would end up in a limbo between life and death.

He collapsed without a sound. He didn grab his chest, he didn indicate any pain or discomfort, he just closed his eyes and slumped down, coffee in hand. moncler outlet online Unbeknownst to the colleague with him in the elevator, Sproull heart had entered a state of electric anarchy, no longer pumping out blood.

Responding to the 911 call from De Lage Landen, EMS Captain Chris Griesser of Berwyn Fire Company arrived less than 15 minutes later. He had to cut through a crowd to get to Sproull.

shocked him with the AED and we think we have a pulse, one woman kneeling next to the body told Griesser. Sproull moncler outlet woodbury shirt had been ripped moncler uk outlet open, and moncler sale outlet electrodes from a so called automated external defibrillator (AED) were glued to his chest.

Within a few minutes of the cardiac arrest, a company employee trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) had jolted Sproull heart back to its normal rhythm.

Still, it was far from clear that moncler outlet sale Sproull would survive. He was in a deep coma and barely breathing. If he uk moncler sale made it to the hospital alive, chances were his brain would be so profoundly damaged that he would never be able to live a normal cheap moncler jackets life again.

In fact, the vast majority of the 300,000 Americans who suffer cardiac arrest every year die. Despite massive investments in research and technology, fewer than eight in 100 leave the hospital alive, a rate that has remained stagnant for almost 30 years.

Even if the heart is restarted, only a minority make it. And of those who do, many end up in nursing homes with crippling brain injury.

Doctors say those statistics could change, however, if more people had access to a procedure called therapeutic hypothermia cooling the online website https://www.cheapmoncler.com cheap moncler body.

As medical procedures go, it among the simplest: Chill the patient about six degrees Fahrenheit using cold intravenous saline, cooling blankets or ice packs and wait 24 hours; then re warm the patient slowly and cross your fingers.

It also the only treatment proven to protect the brain after cardiac arrest. In 2009, an analysis of best moncler jackets earlier studies showed it increased the discount moncler jackets chances that people like Sproull would survive with intact brain function by more than half.

Since 2005, it been a staple part of resuscitation guidelines, inspiring a newfound can do attitude in a growing number of emergency physicians across the country.

are pushing into the gray zone and grabbing people back, said Dr. Benjamin Abella, a doctor at the Center for Resuscitation Science at the University of Pennsylvania in cheap moncler jackets womens Philadelphia.

Yet many hospitals have been slow to pick up the procedure. Those that use it often do so inconsistently, incompletely or with big delays, experts say. What more, most emergency moncler outlet medical services still rush cardiac arrest patients off to the nearest hospital, making it a high stakes geographical gamble whether or not that person gets cooled.

are probably thousands of people in this country who end up having severe brain damage because they don have access to this treatment, cheap moncler jackets mens Abella said. not subtle.

THE BRAIN ON FIRE When a cardiac arrest stops the moncler outlet store circulation, the first organ to crave oxygen is the brain. But the real trouble doesn begin until the heart is shocked back to life and starts flooding the brain with fresh oxygen.

In a chemical wildfire of sorts, the moncler online store cells crank up their activity so much it becomes toxic. Waves of electricity crisscross through the tissue, inflammation revs up, and untold numbers of brain cells switch on genetic suicide programs.

one thing that has a beneficial effect on every single one of these processes is cooling the tissue, said Dr. Stephan A. Mayer, an moncler outlet prices expert in cooling and a neurologist at Columbia University in New York.

a massive chemical burn injury. Cooling the tissue, hypothermia, is uk moncler outlet like throwing cold water on the whole response.

So when Sproull was wheeled into the emergency room at Paoli Hospital, a dozen minutes from De Lage Landen, cardiologist Dr. Todd Rudo went cheap moncler coats mens to work quickly. He wrapped Sproull in ice bags and later blankets with cold fluid circulating through them.

As is commonly done, he also gave him sedatives and muscle relaxants to make sure he wouldn shiver and reheat.

Meanwhile, Sproull wife of 23 years, Debbie, was stuck in slow moving traffic. A veteran nurse practitioner, she had been at work at Bellevue Hospital in New York when she received the bad news. She scrambled to her car, moncler sale clutching a printout with directions to Paoli.

was three hours away, in the middle of a nor trying to drive there, she said. moncler sale online everybody was involved but me.

Knowing nothing of Paoli Hospital, she decided to have Ed transferred to the nationally renowned resuscitation center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Research assistant David Fried cools down during a body cooling for trauma patients demonstration at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, June 3, 2010. REUTERS/Tim Shaffer

NO EASY FIX A dark haired, energetic man of 39 moncler usa whose frequent smile makes his eyes squint, Abella has been one of the driving forces behind Penn cooling program, which launched in 2006.

He had started another cooling program at the University of Chicago back in 2002, when the procedure was still very much experimental. That same year, two studies in the New England Journal of Medicine got the ball rolling, becoming central parts of the evidence that led the American Heart Association to recommend cooling a few years later.

Both studies were relatively small including 77 and 275 patients, respectively but had a strong design. For each, researchers randomly assigned resuscitated, comatose patients to cooling or normal temperature.