Biology Courses: Improving Trauma Treatment through EPRI Identify a problem. Trauma patients are those who have suffered serious, life-threatening injuries. First responders have little time to stabilize their conditions and try to save their lives. While surgeons and doctors have the technology, skills and knowledge needed to save victims of blunt or penetrating trauma, they have very limited time to do so. “The golden hour” is the period of time after a patient's injury in which appropriate medical treatment prevents death. However, this "golden hour" can last anywhere from a few minutes to an hour, giving doctors little to work with. Describe/explain methods to solve this problem. Recently there have been great advances in trauma medicine and this time frame has been extended. One method that is being studied is that of EPR, Emergency Prevention and Resuscitation. This is effectively a form of suspended animation. The patient's heart is stopped and the body is cooled to below 10°C by flushing the circulatory system with a chilled saline solution, at which point the patient has no brain activity or pulse. These extreme temperatures greatly reduce the body's need for oxygen, allowing cells to continue living without the patient breathing or having a heartbeat. This lack of circulation and metabolism allows doctors and surgeons to repair any serious injuries and greatly increase the patient's chances of survival. Once the patient has been healed, he or she is revived by transfusing warm blood into the body and sometimes using an electric shock to restart the heart. So far this method has only been tested on pigs and dogs, with great success, (Experimental r. ..... middle of paper ...... compared to when using the minimal fluid resuscitation method, particularly when the method has been used with mild hypothermia, which involves the use of cooled fluids, usually to around 30-34 ⁰C. Experiments/results ?-Rosie Connolly 7/3/10 10:07 AMFontiSafar Center for Resuscitation ResearchResearch Projects, documents, etc. Recognized around the world. Access to research documents: does it count as paper even if I found them online? US government clinical trials service. Information on human trials in the EPR. New article from scientists reporting the first discoveries with mice.NEED TO FIND.Evaluate source.Articlehttp://www.mirm.pitt.edu/news/article.asp?qEmpID=273 ?References to surgeons, research papers and trials. Biased: part of the. University of Pittsburgh, the testing center.