Cold water helmet helps stroke sufferers
Published: January 31, 2006
For stroke sufferers, a pioneering study offers hope for full recovery.
Researchers at Edmonton’s University Hospital have been treating stroke patients with a helmet that circulates cold water around the head, a treatment normally reserved for migraine headaches and hair loss in chemotherapy patients.
This new approach may help more patients recover fully. Currently the rate is just 25 to 35 per cent.
Unlike the headache that comes from eating too much butterscotch ripple too fast, one patient described the treatment as painless but … cold. Randy Greene, 57, of Tofield, Alta., credits the new treatment with speeding his own recovery and expects to return to work.
Doctors believe cooling the brain helps to slow down the heated metabolic activity that destroys brain cells during a stroke. Cooling the brain also gives it time to reroute blood through unblocked arteries, limiting the damage.
The brainstorm came out of a near tragic incident involving an Edmonton toddler who wandered out of her home into minus 24C temperatures. Her heart stopped for two hours. But she survived and the freezing cold helped protect her brain tissue.
Hats off to medical science for a “cool” discovery.
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