Mental Activity During Deep Hypothermic Circulatory Arrest
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A Pilot Study Examining Conscious Awareness and Cognitive Experiences During Deep Hypothermic Circulatory Arrest
IRAS ID
271069
Contact name
Charles Deakin
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
New York University School of Medicine
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Every year, about 375,000 people in Europe experience their heart stopping, known as cardiac arrest. Some survivors report feelings of awareness during the cardiac arrest. Deep Hypothermic Circulatory Arrest (DHCA) is a surgery where the body is cooled down to the point that the heart stops, mimicking cardiac arrest. DHCA is done to reduce damage to the brain and other organs during surgery. Evidence suggests that patients who have a DHCA procedure may also experience awareness during DHCA, but it is not known how often these experiences occur or what they are like.
We plan to interview patients to understand their memories during their surgeries. To test awareness, we will display pictures and sounds during surgeries. Using methods developed for previous studies, we aim to test the relationship between these claims of awareness and brain activity. Through this study, we hope to better understand if/how patients remember their experiences.
Our long-term goal is to perform a large study which would allow us to explore the experiences that patients who undergo DHCA may recall. To prepare for this large study, we will first run a smaller study of sixty patients, which should provide the information that we need to design the full scale study. We will compare the experiences of 50 DHCA patients with those of 10 patients who had a non-DHCA surgery.
We hope the results of this study will help us design a future large-scale study on awareness during DHCA. We will share our findings with the patients taking part in the study, and with managers who run NHS services, with the ultimate aim of improving knowledge about experiences during cardiac arrest and DHCA.
REC name
South West - Central Bristol Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/SW/0193
Date of REC Opinion
19 Nov 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion