Experience hyperthermia Essay

Marian suffered from a heat stroke causing her body to experience hyperthermia. Marian body went through the process of homeostasis from experiencing hyperthermia. â€Å"Homeostasis is a state of body equilibrium or stable internal environment of the body.†(Marieb 8) Homeostasis protects the body by allowing it to adapt to the environment. Marian homeostasis tried to cool the body but failed. Though Marian was lucky her daughter found her in time. When a heat stroke occurs the body’s homeostasis shuts down where the temperature can reach high enough to cause brain damage to where you die. Heat strokes can cause damage internally well as externally. Hyperthermia causes a positive feedback mechanism within the body. â€Å"A positive feedback mechanism is a feedback that tends to cause the level of variable to change in the same direction as an initial change.†( Marieb 9) When the body stimulus rises the hypothalamus’s thermoreceptors start to work as the bod y’s thermostat. The thermoreceptors send messages allowing the hypothalamus to make temperature changes in the core. When the core starts to raise the heat loss mechanism starts one or two things: â€Å"dilation of cutaneous blood vessels or enhanced sweating.†(Marieb 833) â€Å"Dilation of cutaneous blood vessels is where the vessels swell with warm blood, heat is lost from the radiation, conduction, and convection† (Marieb 833) Some symptoms for a heat stroke are â€Å"throbbing headache, dizziness and light-headedness, lack of sweating despite the heat, red hot skin, muscle weakness or cramps, nausea and vomiting, rapid heartbeat, which may either strong or weak, rapid shallow breathing, behavioral changes such as confusion, disorientation or staggering, seizures, and unconsciousness.†( http://firstaid.webmd.com/heat-stroke-symptoms-and-treatment) The treatments of methodologies for hyperthermia that were used in this case study was to apply cold wash cloth to forehead and face, position in front of a fan while using a spray bottle with water on her skin. Applying a cold wash cloth to face and forehead allows the body to drop in temperature. Positioning the body in front of a fan allows cooling. Spraying water allows hydration to the dehydrated skin. Hyperthermia is, also, used for cancer patients. â€Å"Hyperthermia treatment heats body tissues to 113 degrees Fahrenheit to damage and destroy cancer cells while leaving healthy tissue unharmed.†( http://www.ehow.com/about_6470647_new-hyperthermia-cancer-treatment.html)Hyperthermia can happen very easily. People need to wear sun screen, lose fitting of clothing to cover the skin. Eat small portions; drink plenty of fluids but not alcohol. Alcohol dehydrates the body. Watch the weather to see if a heat advisory is in effect. Make sure not to do hard exercise work out during hot days. Talk to your primary doctor to see if your medications or your disease(s) can be effected by the sun. In this case though, Marian suffered from a heat stroke due to being in a house with no windows open. Hyperthermia is more harmful to infants or small children, elderly, overweight, people who are ill or medications. Small children or infants depend on others to protect them. They are defenseless in the sense when it comes to staying out of the sun, sunscreen, and hydration. The elderly may not feel heat stress. Elderly for the most part don’t response or sense to the change in climate. People who have diabetes tend to have poor circulation. Poor circulation is dangerous during heat waves because the blood needs to flow throughout the body to cool itself. So having poor circulation already would mean the body would trouble pumping blood faster to cool the body, thus, causing a heat stroke. People who are overweight retain more body heat than skinny people. When having more body heat it causes heat stress. Heat stress leads to a heat stroke. People who work out can over do it and experience dehydration. Dehydration can cause heat stress. People who have heart disease or high blood pressure are at risk because when the body is trying to the cool its self the heart has to pump in a faster pace causing the heart rate and blood pressure to go up. This is not good because it causes these people more stress on the heart. People on other medications have to be careful because the sun can cause increase or decreases in the function of the body which the medications are already trying to control without the factor of the sun. How a medical personal treat hyperthermia is very carefully. The body can be damage either by the tissue, brain, and /or body organs or maybe all three are damaged. The first thing is to check the people’s vitals to see if they are stable. Second, a physical assessment can be done to look over the skin.