I.1 A way to detect and alert clinicians to shivering in patients undergoing therapeutic hypothermia therapy in order to optimize the delivery of paralytic medications.

There are more than 356,00 out-of-hospital cardiac arrest cases in the United States every year. Unfortunately, nearly 90% of those cases are fatal. After cardiac arrest and return of spontaneous circulation, patients are very susceptible to developing a fever, which is associated with poor outcomes. However, targeted temperature management of the patient can increase the patient’s chances of survival as well as regaining cognitive function. 

This can be accomplished by inducing moderate, therapeutic hypothermia while the patient is sedated. This therapy can also be used in patients who have had a traumatic brain injury. By inducing hypothermia, it prevents the patient from developing fever and allows clinicians to more slowly bring the patient back to a normothermic state. BD’s targeted temperature management solution is the Arctic Sun™, which can be used on neonates to adult patients.

During therapeutic hypothermia, many patients develop shivering. This is the body’s way of trying to rewarm but is counterproductive to the hypothermia therapy. Clinicians can administer medications to help reduce the shivering, but it can be difficult to know the proper dose because there is no way to quantify how much the patient is shivering. It may also be difficult to know if shivering has occurred as the patient may be shivering when the nursing staff is not in the room with the patient. 

During therapeutic hypothermia, many patients develop shivering. This is the body’s way of trying to rewarm but is counterproductive to the hypothermia therapy. Clinicians can administer medications to help reduce the shivering, but it can be difficult to know the proper dose because there is no way to quantify how much the patient is shivering. It may also be difficult to know if shivering has occurred as the patient may be shivering when the nursing staff is not in the room with the patient. 

The project will be focused on a way to detect, quantify, and alert clinicians to shivering during hypothermic therapy. This will allow clinicians to give their patients medication more optimally and will result in a more efficient therapy. It will also help notify clinicians that their patient is shivering in order to address the issue more promptly.