Abstract

Clinical staging of accidental hypothermia is used to guide out-of-hospital treatment and transport decisions. Most clinical systems utilize core temperature, by measurement or estimation, to stage hypothermia, despite the challenge of obtaining accurate field measurements. Recent studies have demonstrated that field estimation of core temperature is imprecise.We propose a revision of the original Swiss Staging system. The revised system uses the risk of cardiac arrest, instead of core temperature, to determine the staging level. Our revised system simplifies assessment by using the level of responsiveness, based on the AVPU scale, and by removing shivering as a stage-defining sign.

Highlights

  • Accidental hypothermia is defined as an involuntary drop of core temperature to

  • We propose a revised version of the widely used Swiss staging system that focuses on the likelihood of cardiac arrest rather than on core temperature

  • This system is designed for use in patients with primary accidental hypothermia in the absence of other factors affecting the level of consciousness

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Summary

Introduction

Accidental hypothermia is defined as an involuntary drop of core temperature to

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Conflicts of interest

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