Re: help

Posted By CCF Cardio MD -APS on October 05, 1997 at 23:08:39:

In Reply to: help posted by Debbie King on September 28, 1997 at 23:11:10:







: I posted this in the med forum and they suggested I post it here as they were stumped.  I would appreciate any help:

Could someone plese tell me what hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy is. We have a 4 month old little boy who has a diagnosis of that. He also has diabetic cardiomyopathy. He is a little boy we are adopting and he was born 1 month early with respiratory failure, profound hypoglycemia, and hypotension. He also has a heart murmur. His birth mother had maternal gestational diabetes, methamphetimine use and was a heavy smoker. She also had no prenatal care. Our baby did go thorugh methamphetamin withdrawal after birth.
I am giving all this history because I thought it might be helpful in answering my question. We received some paper work today that had the above diagnosis on it and had never heard of that before. If anyone can help I would be very grateful.
Thanks









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Dear Debbie King,
Hypoxia means lack of oxygen.   Ischemia means actively dying tissue as a result of lack of oxygen.  Any part of the body, especially the brain, will become more and more ischemic (dead) with longer periods of hypoxia.  Once the ischemic insult is over, i.e. the oxygen delivery resumes at its required level, the tissue affected begins a recovery process.  In the brain tissue the recovery is very complicated and it is very difficult to predict how much recovery there might be, any dysfunction is therefore termed ischemic encephalopathy ("encephal" means head and "path" means disease.)  The type of physician that cares for a patient with encephalopathy is called a neurologist, there is a Cleveland Clinic neurology forum on this web site that would be more appropriate for further neurological questions.  I hope that I have been of some help to you, and if you do not mind I would suggest you inquire as to the extent of this childs disability before adopting because number one: your brief description of this child is concerning for serious disability, and number two: by your brief description you do not appear to be informed of the extent or type of disability nor of the consequences.  
Information provided in the Heart Forum is intended for general medical informational purposes only.  Any diagnosis or treatment of a medical condition can only be made by ones physician(s).