Coolest Cap
The coolest cap from our point of view in not an everyday gadget or something you can purchase to make you look cool or stylish, but it is a device that helps infants to live a normal life even if they had some problems when they were born.
This cool cap is called the Olympic Cool-Cap system and it is the only FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approved device for treating the HIE (hypoxic – ischemic encephalopathy). This medical gadget is the best treatment for infants who could have fatal injuries to their brain, injuries caused by the lack of oxygen to the brain or by low levels of oxygen.
The cap is part of a special and unique cooling system that maintains the body temperature of the infants at below-normal level while the head is kept cool. If this treatment is administered to newborns in their 6 hours of life, the Olympic Cool-Cap System reduces or prevents neurological injuries.
The clinical benefits of this medical gadget are the following: it is able to minimize the side-effects associated with hypothermia and provides great neurological protection; the neurological development has improved results and if this technology is used when the infant need it the most, the survival rates are higher.
The system has two components: the control unit and the cooling unit. The control unit comes with a touch-screen that is very easy to use and has also built-in protocols and help guide that come in handy for the better treatment. The cooling unit has a solid-state water cooler that is very quiet and also very reliable. The temperature control is easy to use and the unit displays the temperature of the skin, the scalp, the cooling cap and other temperature sensor can display temperatures from different parts of the body.
The cooling cap is available in three different sizes: small, medium and large. The cooling cap is made of insulated out cap (that helps maintain the temperature the doctors want by reflecting external heat), water-cap retainer (is just a material that holds the water-cap securely in place) and the water-cap itself that uses water-circulating channels to provide uniform, controlled and efficient contact.
The cooling unit is a solid-state water cooler which controls the temperature of the water. The draining and the filling of this cooling unit is fast and simple: the device is filled by connecting it to one liter bag of water (the water has to be sterile) and at the end of the treatment, the cooling unit is drained of water by filling back the bag with water.
This cool cap is able to keep the body temperature of the infant between 34 – 35 degrees Celsius while keeping the brain cool for about 72 hours. More information about this great medical gadget is on the Natus.com website.
