Impaired Temperature Regulation – Nursing Interventions for Acute Spinal Cord Injury

00:00 Okay. Now there is a word. I just want you to try and sound that out on your own.

00:06 Yeah. That's a weird one. Well, if you could say it, what do you think it means? Okay. It's the inability to control body temperature due to a spinal cord injury.

00:20 So, knowing that, this is something that can happen pretty often with a spinal cord injury.

00:26 Our job is to watch that temperature regulation.

00:28 So the patient's body temperature will be equal to the room temperature.

00:33 Think about like how we handle babies.

00:35 Whatever the room temperature is that's what the patient is gonna be.

00:39 So, peripheral temperature sensations, they aren't delivered to the hypothalamus.

00:43 Usually that's what controls it, but the information highway, your spinal cord has been damaged.

00:50 So the hypothalamus doesn't get the right signals that's why they can't regulate their temperature.

00:55 So the patient just has a lowered ability to sweat or shiver below the level of spinal cord injury.

01:02 So the higher the spinal cord injury, the more significant the problem.

01:07 But remember, they can't sweat or shiver very well below the level of the spinal cord injury.

01:14 So you could potentially see some very unusual symptoms when someone's trying to regulate their temperature.

01:21 So you're gonna watch their body temperature closely, and you have to respond appropriately, so be ready.

01:26 You're gonna put blankets on, you're gonna take them off.

01:28 You’re gonna put them off, you're gonna take them off because you have to be the temperature regulator for patients that are struggling with this.

01:35 They can't do it for themselves.