Replacing blood with salt water could retrieve people from the brink of death

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140704-i-bring-the-dead-back-to-life

by noobermin • 12 years ago

7 2 12 years ago

Please do not misunderstand me, but I wonder how this procedure would change the costs of medical treatment following traumatic injury. At present we have a situation where patients who would be subjected to this treatment would die in 90% of cases (from the article, where direct heart massage is used to continue blood flow). If this treatment increases that survival rate dramatically how many of those survivors would require further (expensive) treatment?

Obviously this is not a simple question to answer. If the survival is accompanied by severe disability requiring months/years of rehab, then costs increase, if those surviving are left relatively unaffected then costs would be stable or reduce.

I have a feeling that we are currently in a period of development of medical treatment when we can (at cost with expensive and complex treatment) keep people going for a longer period, both after traumatic injury and in total age. However the quality of life may be low and cost of supporting that life may be high. I think that this type of treatment may be progress towards more simple and therefore less expensive treatments that have less adverse side effects.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe that replacing a patients blood with salt water whilst also lowering there temperature in a controlled way and performing major surgery all at the same time is "simple", however it does sound a lot less complex than some of the procedures that are done to keep somebody going whilst trying to patch them back together following traumatic injury.

bluewolf• 12 years ago

Don't apologise. Your view is held by a growing number of people who don't want their lives saved by medical heroics - only to live a reduced quality of life.

Replacing blood with salt water could retrieve people from the brink of death

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