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Paediatric Hypothermia

PREDISPOSITION

  • radiation (large surface area to volume ratio, large head)
  • convective (repeated examinations with exposure to atmosphere)
  • conductive (loss of heat into bed)
  • thermoregulatory response altered (sedation or paralysis, neurological injury)

PREVENTION

Environmental

  • adequate ambient temperature
  • maintain dry skin
  • cover head with a cap or beanie
  • warm blankets
  • heating blanket
  • forced air warmers
  • infra-red radiant heaters

Clinical

  • minimise exposure to environment during clinical examination
  • continuous or intermittent thermal monitoring
  • avoiding cold fluids
  • giving warm fluids (39 degrees) to prevent further heat loss
  • warm ventilator gases (37 degrees if normothermic, 42 degrees if hypothermic)

Rewarming strategies

  • gastric or bladder lavage with 42 degrees normal saline
  • peritoneal lavage with 42 degrees potassium free dialysate (20mL/kg at 15/60 cycles)
  • pleural or pericardial lavage
  • endovascular warming
  • extracorporeal blood rewarming (ECMO or dialysis)

CCC 700 6

Critical Care

Compendium

Chris is an Intensivist and ECMO specialist at the Alfred ICU in Melbourne. He is also a Clinical Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University. He is a co-founder of the Australia and New Zealand Clinician Educator Network (ANZCEN) and is the Lead for the ANZCEN Clinician Educator Incubator programme. He is on the Board of Directors for the Intensive Care Foundation and is a First Part Examiner for the College of Intensive Care Medicine. He is an internationally recognised Clinician Educator with a passion for helping clinicians learn and for improving the clinical performance of individuals and collectives.

After finishing his medical degree at the University of Auckland, he continued post-graduate training in New Zealand as well as Australia’s Northern Territory, Perth and Melbourne. He has completed fellowship training in both intensive care medicine and emergency medicine, as well as post-graduate training in biochemistry, clinical toxicology, clinical epidemiology, and health professional education.

He is actively involved in in using translational simulation to improve patient care and the design of processes and systems at Alfred Health. He coordinates the Alfred ICU’s education and simulation programmes and runs the unit’s education website, INTENSIVE.  He created the ‘Critically Ill Airway’ course and teaches on numerous courses around the world. He is one of the founders of the FOAM movement (Free Open-Access Medical education) and is co-creator of litfl.com, the RAGE podcast, the Resuscitology course, and the SMACC conference.

His one great achievement is being the father of three amazing children.

On Twitter, he is @precordialthump.

| INTENSIVE | RAGE | Resuscitology | SMACC

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