Hypothermia and nutrition: at present more questions than answers?

Excerpt

Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) has been recently accepted as a powerful medical intervention for providing neuroprotection to patients sustaining cardiac arrest and hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. Further, TH has also been explored as a potential treatment strategy for patients with traumatic brain injury and ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke (for review see [1]). With the widespread propagation of TH as treatment for intracranial hypertension in patients who are refractory to standard interventions [2], induction and maintenance of TH is no longer restricted to the early period (that is, the first 12 to 24 hours) of acute brain injuries but has expanded over several days until rewarming [3]. Therefore, it is evident that, in addition to the disease process itself, TH has a major impact on ICU management such as analgesia and sedation, ventilator therapy, cardiocirculatory support, or artificial nutrition. …