A Head and Neck Support Device for Inducing Local Hypothermia

The present work describes the design of a device/system intended to induce local mild hypothermia by simultaneously cooling a patient's head and neck. The therapeutic goal is to lower the head and neck temperatures to 33-35 °C, while leaving the core body temperature unchanged. The device works by circulating a cold fluid around the exterior of the head and neck. The head surface area is separated into five different cooling zones. Each zone has a cooling coil and can be independently controlled. The cooling coils are tightly wrapped concentric circles of tubing. This design allows for a dense packing of tubes in a limited space, while preventing crimping of the tubing and minimizing the fluid pressure head loss. The design in the neck region also has multiple tubes wrapping around the circumference of the patient's neck in a helix. Preliminary testing indicates that this approach is capable of achieving the design goal of cooling the brain tissue (at a depth of 2.5 cm from the scalp) to 35 °C within 30-40 min, without any pharmacologic or circulatory manipulation. In a comparison with examples of current technology, the device has shown the potential for improved cooling capability.