What is hypothermia?
In short, hypothermia is a state of hypothermia in which the body is in a low temperature environment (cold water, snow), because the heat loss rate is faster than the body’s heat production rate, resulting in abnormal organ function and even life-threatening hypothermia. Hypothermia usually occurs when the body temperature is lower than 35 ℃.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that for the elderly, hypothermia may occur even in less cold rooms.
Is there what when hypothermia occurs?
Mild hypothermia may cause discomfort such as dizziness, hunger, nausea, accelerated breathing, difficulty in speaking, fatigue, accelerated heart rate, etc.
When the body temperature drops further, the body will enter a state of moderate to severe hypothermia, with slow breathing, weakened pulse, unclear speech, uncoordinated actions, inability to concentrate, lethargy and even loss of consciousness.
What should I do if I find someone suffering from hypothermia?
Step 1 Call 120 now
When someone is found to have symptoms of hypothermia or is in a cold environment for a long time, he should immediately call 120.
2. Treatment before the arrival of emergency personnel
(1) Pay attention to gentle movements
When helping patients with hypothermia, attention should be paid to gentle movements. Too many or too severe movements may lead to cardiac arrest.
(2) Move the patient to a warm place
If the patient cannot be moved to a warm place, he should be shielded from cold factors such as cold wind as much as possible.
(3) Heating patients
- Take off your wet clothes: If the patient wears wet clothes, Take it off or cut it off. Take off your clothes gently. Cover the patient with blankets or clothes: Keep your head warm when covering, only leaking out of your face. Don’t let the patient sleep on the cold ground: the cold ground will continue to lose heat. Use your body to help him keep warm: take off your clothes, direct skin contact is best; Pay attention to covering each other with blankets or clothes.
(4) Monitoring respiration
Patients with severe hypothermia may have cardiac and respiratory arrest. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation should be started if the patient’s breathing is found to have stopped or is very weak or about to stop.
(5) Drink hot drinks
If the patient is awake and can swallow, he can drink some warm sugar water. Be careful not to drink alcohol or coffee.
(6) Use hot water bag to raise temperature
If conditions permit, you can use a hot water bag to contain some warm water to raise the patient’s body temperature.
However, it must be noted that only the head, neck, chest and abdomen can be heated with hot water bags, not the limbs. Heating the limbs will cause low-temperature blood to flow back to the heart and brain, lowering the core temperature of the body and even fatal.
(7) The temperature should not be too high
Direct use of hot water or high-temperature hot water bags may burn the skin and even lead to cardiac arrest.
How to prevent hypothermia?
1. Wear your hat and gloves before you go out
Exposed head and hands will cause a large loss of heat.
Step 2: Choose the right clothes
Weavers’ dense and waterproof jackets can have better windproof and warm-keeping effects. The inner clothes should be made of wool, silk and polypropylene, which have better warm-keeping effect than cotton clothes.
Step 3 Keep clothes dry
It is better to choose waterproof clothes. If clothes or gloves are wet, change them as much as possible.
4. Moderate Exercise
Too much exercise and sweat will soak clothes and reduce the thermal insulation effect of clothes.
5. Don’t drink in these situations
Don’t drink when you go out or before you go to bed in winter. Drinking not only does not keep warm, but also dilates blood vessels and accelerates heat loss. When you want to work on water, don’t drink, it is easy to fall into the water after getting drunk.
6. The elderly should pay attention to keeping warm indoors.
The elderly are no better than the young. Even the room temperature that the young feel comfortable may lead to hypothermia in the elderly. Therefore, the elderly should pay more attention to keeping warm indoors.
7. Safety in Cold Water
As long as the water temperature is lower than the body temperature, heat loss will occur, which may lead to hypothermia. If you are unfortunate enough to capsize or crash in the sea, the following methods can be used to avoid heat loss too quickly:
(1) Leave the water as much as possible: for example, climb floating objects in Shanghai;
(2) Stay where you are: Unless there are boats and life jackets nearby, you should stay where you are and keep your physical strength waiting for rescue.
(3) Maintain curled-up position: curled-up position can reduce heat loss;
(4) Holding with others: Holding two or more people together can reduce heat loss.