Nexus - 0306 - New Times Magazine-pages

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This simple procedure utilises an automatic reflex which can avert brain damage and help save the lives of heart-attack and suffocation victims. hile current medical methods cannot entirely prevent heart attacks, there is an emergency procedure that can save lives. This simple technique can reduce or avert the possibility of brain damage and brain death for up to an hour or more. If this procedure saves one life, it is fully worth all the time and effort I have spent in research. The Dobkin Technique seeks to prevent the irreversible brain damage thought to occur, in the event of traumatic accident, when no oxygen reaches the brain after four minutes.' It is a time-buying procedure for saving the lives of heart-attack victims and victims of suffoca- tion, drowning, respiratory failure and drug overdose. Perhaps it will help even SIDS (cot death) and stroke victims until the arrival of proper medical equipment and personnel. The Technique can be applied by a child or may be self-administered in almost any home. It takes less than 30 seconds to initiate and the results are as immediate.’ It works on both conscious and unconscious victims. The procedure can be easily explained over the phone. The Canadian Medical Association Journal documented a case of cold-water drowning, where a boy, after half an hour of complete submersion, was resuscitated and, with proper medical treatment, experienced no lasting side-effects. He had no cerebral damage, despite his brain having received no oxygen for over half an hour,’ Research has provided additional case studies of extended cold-water submersion with no brain damage to resuscitated victims: article after article, story after story, of people deprived of oxygen for up to an hour—with no ill-effects or brain damage. What is it that protects the brain from damage in cases of oxygen deprivation over the four-minute limit? Can this be applied as a life-saving technique to heart-attack victims? In all vertebrates there is an automatic reflex called the “mammalian diving reflex”. It occurs naturally as a life-preserving mechanism during cold-water submersion. More com- monly called the "diving reflex", it is a protective, oxygen-conserving reflex to keep brain and body alive in the event of submergence in cold water. The body prepares itself to sus- tain life. Itis a totally natural, protective mechanism. Natural engagement of the diving reflex is what has enabled drowning victims to be revived successfully after as long as an hour of cold-water submersion, with little to no ill- effects. The Dobkin Technique seeks to trigger this reflex in a crisis. The Technique may never replace cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), but its purpose is not to compete with CPR but to help the thousands of victims of heart attack orsuffocation who are in life-or- death situations but nowhere near any people trained in CPR. If you are not skilful in CPR and you live in the country where an ambulance is twenty minutes away, if someone close to you has a heart attack, the options are frightening. Without initiating the Dobkin Technique, a person whose heart stops has only four minutes until irreversible brain damage starts to set in. The Technique may work in conjunction with CPR to save lives, but there is also the possibility that it may not work at all. But the fact that it just may work makes it worth closer study. In the light of no other available rem- edy, it could be put into practice in an emergency. What would you choose if you lived in the country and had a heart attack? The Dobkin Technique is simple and easy to initiate. In natural surroundings, the diving teflex is triggered if you fall into water with a temperature of 58 degrees Fahrenheit (approx. 14 degrees Celsius)—the mean temperature of the world's waters—or colder. But this reflex may also be triggered by just a facial immersion in cold water, at 58°F (14°C) or colder). The Technique involves application of cold water, wet towels or wet ice-packs to the victim's head to trigger the diving reflex in the event of heart or respiratory failure. This procedure starts the oxygen-conserving mammalian diving reflex. Here is what happens: Bradycardia can start within as quickly as four seconds, or can take up to 30 seconds depending on what part of the breath cycle the person is in when cold water is applied to the face. In man, cold-water facial immersion usually induces a 15-30 per cent decrease in by Jeffrey W. Dobkin © 1986, 1993 The.Danielle Adams Publishing Co. PO Box 100 Merion Station, PA 19066, USA Telephone: +1 (610) 642 1000 Fax: +1 (610) 642 6832 by Jeffrey W. Dobkin © 1986, 1993 32 ¢ NEXUS OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 1996