Reanimation

Reanimation 

(also, resuscitation), the measures taken to revive a person in a state of clinical death or to restore the functions of vital organs suddenly lost or impaired as a result of accident, disease, or complications.

Reanimation is studied by a new branch of medicine, reani-matology. As this field has developed, reanimative measures have come to include not only direct revival but also ways of controlling acute metabolic disturbances involving water and electrolytes and gas exchange disturbances, methods of combating acute circulatory, pulmonary, hepatic, and renal insufficiency, and ways of restoring impaired functions following surgery. Other terms often used in the sense of reanimation are “intensive therapy” and “intensive care,” but they are understood differently in various countries and by different specialists.

In reanimation, two factors are taken into account: the general principles of treating terminal states and clinical syndromes that threaten the life of a patient regardless of the etiology of the disease, and the nature of the pathological process. Various types of equipment are used, including electronic monitors, defibrillators, and electrostimulators, as well as drugs and such surgical techniques as tracheotomy and puncture and catheterization of major vessels. Such methods as closed cardiac massage and manual artificial respiration are used by medical personnel regardless of the physician’s or paramedical worker’s own specialty. These procedures are also carried out by specially trained persons in other occupations: rescue and highway squads and the police. First-aid personnel are also effective in reanimation since they are provided with specialized equipment and machines and are able to summon specially trained antishock, infarction, and toxicologic teams.

The full range of reanimation measures is provided in specialized departments and centers and in intensive care units. These facilities treat patients whose vital functions are impaired or are likely to be impaired because of brain injury, poisoning, severe burns, myocardial infarction, acute renal failure, or tetanus or following extensive operations. When departments providing reanimation treatment are based in cardiological, surgical, neurological, and other centers, they specialize in cardiology, toxicology, postoperative care, and respiratory or renal complications. When such departments are nonspecial-ized, they function in major oblast or city hospitals.

REFERENCES

Gurevich, N. L. Fibrilliatsiia i defibrilliatsiia serdtsa. Moscow, 1957.
Popova, L. M. “Organizatsiia lecheniia bol’nykh s rasstroistvom dykha-niia pri ostrom poliomielite.” Vestnik AMN SSSR, 1958, no. 7.
Negovskii, V. A. Ozhivlenie organizma i iskusstvennaia gipotermiia. Moscow, 1960.
Safar, P. “Closed Chest Cardiac Massage.” Anesthesia and Analgesia: Current Researches, 1961, vol. 40, no. 6.
Schwiete, W. M. “Wiederbelebung von 150 Jahren.” Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift, 1967, vol. 37, pp. 1689–93.

R. N. LEBEDEVA