X-Message-Number: 22446
From: 
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 22:46:34 EDT
Subject: Hypothermia and assisted "suicide"

(First, a bit of background for anyone not following the thread) 
Switzerland apparently allows assisted suicide, and if a terminal cryonaut 
were connected to a blood cooling machine and turned it on himself that would 
seemingly be legal. Thus a sufferer from heart failure or Alzheimer's could 
deanimate and be frozen before irreprable damage to his body or mind made 

successful reanimation unlikely, and also avoid the last pain ridden period of 
life. A 
few of us are trying to find out more.  

Now news: Below is one Web article on hypothermia, which says the heart stops 
around 18C and you then have at least 45 minutes to operate without any 

damage to the patient.  I'd like to find out about the connection between 
machine 
and body -- what artery is connected and how -- and about the cost, complexity 
and availability of the machine. So far I have found no details, but the 
material below does at least confirm the procedure.
Alan Mole


http://errc.bsd.uchicago.edu/abstracts/a03.htm

Deep Hypothermia in Cardiac Surgery


David Jayakar, M.D.

University of Chicago


ABSTRACT

Hypothermia has played an important role in the development of cardiac
surgery. Studies conducted in the 1950   s and 60   s reveal the usefulness of
hypothermia in cardiovascular surgery. Hypothermia reduces oxygen
consumption, which is protective during surgery. Hypothermia may also
protect via effects on the enzymes, cells, organs and via reduction of
reperfusion injury. The clinical effects of hypothermia are well described,
ventricular fibrillation due to hypothermia is known to occur and is a major
drawback to the use of hypothermia in many settings. Hypothermia is often
combined with hemodiluation for additional clinical benefits. The clinical
use of hypothermia includes moderate hypothermia, cooling to 28-32 degrees
Centigrade, as well as deep hypothermic circulatory arrest, which cools
patient to 18 C with the use of cardiopulmonary bypass pumping. Deep
hypothermic circulatory arrest currently allows for surgery as long as 45
minutes with the patient having no blood flow what-so-ever     and is followed
by complete recovery after re-warming. We plan to further investigate the
protective effects of hypothermia using a swine cardiac arrest model and the
isolated heart model. These future studies will be described and will create
a basis for ongoing research in the resuscitation of patients using
hypothermia. We believe improvements in the delivery and use of hypothermia
could save lives in the emergency department and the operating suite for
patients in critical condition.

And here is a very short page that says if you cool the body to 15C the heart 
just stops, which is very convenient for cardiac surgery. Or , in our case, 
it would allow death to be declared, leaving cryo-preparers 45 minutes or more 
(more because they'd be cooling the body further) to replace the blood and 
start cooling to cryo temperatures.

http://www.pavilion.co.uk/lcs/projects/health/1960.htm

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