Clinical Care in Extreme Environments: High Pressure, Immersion, Drowning, Hypo-, and Hyperthermia

Environmental exposure to high or low temperatures, immersion in water, or high ambient pressure can induce specific clinical conditions requiring targeted therapy. This chapter discusses decompression illness and its treatments, drowning, swimming-induced pulmonary edema, hypothermia, and hyperthermia. Hyperbaric treatment, first used for diving-related injury (decompression sickness, arterial gas embolism), has clinical efficacy for several acute conditions, including carbon monoxide poisoning, acute necrotizing infection, crush injury, and compromised surgical flaps, and idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss. Clinical evidence and practical methods are described.

Duke Scholars

Author Richard Edward Moon Anesthesiology, General, Vascular, High Risk Transplant & Cr ...

Author Anne Cherry Anesthesiology