What is hypothermia?
Hypothermia is a medical emergency that occurs when your body loses heat faster than it can produce heat, causing a dangerously low body temperature.
Hypothermia occurs as your body temperature falls below 35 C.
When your body temperature drops, your heart, nervous system and other organs can't work normally. Left untreated, hypothermia can lead to complete failure of your heart and respiratory system and eventually to death.
Symptoms
Signs and symptoms of hypothermia include:
- Shivering
- Slurred speech or mumbling
- Slow, shallow breathing
- Weak pulse
- Clumsiness or lack of coordination
- Drowsiness or very low energy
- Confusion or memory loss
- Loss of consciousness
- Bright red, cold skin (in infants)
Causes
The most common causes of hypothermia are exposure to cold-weather conditions or cold water. But prolonged exposure to any environment colder than your body can lead to hypothermia if you aren't dressed appropriately or can't control the conditions.
Specific conditions leading to hypothermia include:
- Wearing clothes that aren't warm enough for weather conditions
- Staying out in the cold too long
- Being unable to get out of wet clothes or move to a warm, dry location
- Falling into the water, as in a boating accident
- Living in a house that's too cold, either from poor heating or too much air conditioning
How your body loses heat
The mechanisms of heat loss from your body include the following:
- Radiated heat from unprotected surfaces of your body.
- Direct contact with something very cold, such as cold water or the cold ground, heat is conducted away from your body. Because water is very good at transferring heat from your body, body heat is lost much faster in cold water than in cold air.
- Wind that removes body heat by carrying away the thin layer of warm air at the surface of your skin. A wind chill factor is important in causing heat loss.
Risk factors for hypothermia include:
- Older age.
- Exhaustion.
- Very young age.
- Mental problems. (People with a mental illness, dementia or other conditions that interfere with judgment may not dress appropriately for the weather or understand the risk of cold weather. People with dementia may wander from home or get lost easily)
- Alcohol.
- Some medications.
Source:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hypothermia/symptoms-causes/syc-20352682
