Blankets can help prevent brain damage

Washington, July 8 (ANI): Blankets not only help stave off the shivers, they can also offer protection against brain damage, say researchers.

Patients with brain injuries or dangerously high fevers are often cooled to reduce their core body temperature to prevent further damage and aid healing.

But cooling induces shivering, which counteracts to keep the patient's temperature low, thereby causing physical stress.

It is currently treated with sedatives and other drugs.

However, Andreas Kramer, a member of Faculty of 1000 Medicine and leading expert in the field of critical care medicine, said that simply warming the skin with blanker could decrease shivering in many patients, without the need for drugs.

Physicians at Columbia University and the New York Presbyterian Hospital found that the intensity of shivering and physiological stress increased when warming blankets were removed from therapeutically cooled patients.

And shivering subsided when the blankets were replaced.

Kramer said that though warming the skin did not reduce shivering in all patients, "its simplicity, low cost, widespread availability, lack of adverse effects, and the potential to avoid sedation ... make it an attractive treatment option." (ANI)