Could brain cooling aid stroke recovery?
According to a group of Scottish doctors, cooling the brain of patients who have suffered a stroke could spectacularly enhance their recovery.
Already similar techniques have been tried effectively on heart attack patients and those having birth injuries.
So far, studies have involved the body of patients being cooled by using ice cold intravenous drips and cooling pads which were applied to the skin.
Consequently this lowers the body temperature to about 35 degree centigrade. This technique sets the body into a state of artificial hibernation, where the brain can endure with less blood supply, and provides sufficient time to doctors to treat blocked or burst blood vessels.
According to Dr Malcolm Macleod, at the University of Edinburgh, every day 1,000 Europeans die from stroke, which is approximately one every 90 seconds and about twice that number stay alive but are disabled. Their estimates show that hypothermia might improve the upshot for more than 40,000 Europeans per year.
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