Evaluation of the effectiveness of a commercial cooling collar in reducing body temperature during heat stress: Theoretical modeling of body temperature distribution.

摘要

Heat stroke results in an elevation of body temperature and neurological abnormalities which may lead to multiple-organ damage, permanent neurological damage, and even death. In order to effectively reduce the risk of permanent damage, one must rapidly decrease the body temperature. One method which shows potential and lacks in-depth research is the use of a cooling collar. To evaluate this method's effectiveness on cooling the body tissue, a three-dimensional vascular model of the neck and a two-dimensional continuum model of the body using the Pennes bioheat equation, were developed. The vascular model evaluated thermal interaction between the neck tissue and the embedded common carotid artery, vertebral artery, internal and external jugular veins, and cervical spine. The temperature decay along the major blood vessels varied between 0.1°C and 0.5°C when the cooling collar was 0°C at the neck skin surface. Depending on the cooling collar temperature, up to 37 W of heat was removed from the arterial and venous blood in the neck region. The calculated heat removal rate due to blood cooling in the neck and the temperature distribution at the interface between the neck and torso were then substituted into the Pennes bioheat equation (a continuum model) to assess the cooling rate of the body temperature. The results indicate the cooling collar has the potential to decrease the average volumetric body temperature by as much as 0.69°C/hour. The cooling collar's relatively small size and portable nature can provide critical and timely treatment before more complicated methods can be applied.