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- Title
A 95 year-old suffering circulatory arrest after accidental hypothermia: a case report.
- Authors
Carlsen, Anders Wetting; Winnerkvist, Anders M.; Greiff, Guri
- Abstract
<bold>Background: </bold>The elderly are vulnerable to cold and prone to accidental hypothermia, both because of environmental and endogenous factors. The incidence of severe accidental hypothermia among the elderly is poorly described, but many cases probably go unrecorded. Going through literature one finds few publications on severe hypothermia among the elderly, and, to our knowledge, nothing about extracorporeal re-warming of geriatric hypothermia victims.<bold>Case Presentation: </bold>We present a case were a 95 year-old man with severe accidental hypothermia and circulatory arrest was brought to our hospital under on-going CPR, and was successfully resuscitated with extracorporeal circulation. He was discharged to his home without physical sequelae a few weeks later.<bold>Conclusion: </bold>The decision whether or not to continue resuscitation of a nonagenarian can be difficult in many respects. Knowing that resuscitation with extracorporeal circulation is resource intensive may complicate the discussion. In light of our experience with this case we discuss medical and ethical aspects of modern treatment of severe accidental hypothermia.
- Subjects
HYPOTHERMIA treatment; RESUSCITATION; ARTIFICIAL blood circulation; HEALTH of older people
- Publication
BMC Geriatrics, 2017, Vol 17, p1
- ISSN
1471-2318
- Publication type
journal article
- DOI
10.1186/s12877-017-0646-6