The extreme heat wave that has swept across Europe, from the Mediterranean region to Northern European countries like Germany, is bringing serious consequences for the health of citizens. In a live interview with News24, the Albanian doctor in Germany, Dr. Aurora Dollenberg, has sounded the alarm on the clinical situation, revealing that temperatures that are reaching over 40 degrees in the sun have caused a drastic increase in emergencies, hospitalizations and unfortunately, also in mortality.
Dr. Dollenberg explained that northern countries are also facing a major infrastructure crisis, as homes and institutions are built to heat up during the long winter and do not have efficient cooling systems to cope with weeks of scorching heat.
Why is the brain the first to "fail" from heat?
The doctor made an analogy between the human body and an overheated biomachine. When external temperatures exceed 40 degrees, a large difference is created with the normal body temperature, which is 37 degrees. To reduce this overheating, the body activates sweating threefold. As a result, all the blood leaves the vital organs and goes to the skin. Since the brain receives less blood and oxygen, it is the first to stop functioning properly.
This situation causes the first symptoms such as severe headaches, dizziness, irritability, mental confusion and disorientation. Vomiting and nausea also appear, which are direct symptoms indicating a drop in blood pressure in the brain. Then comes heart failure, which can cause cardiac insufficiency, and kidney failure, which explains why people go to the toilet less often during the summer, since all fluids are eliminated through the skin.
Take care of children and the elderly
The most at-risk age groups that become dehydrated in record time are children and the elderly over 65, making the main emergencies in the summer pediatric and geriatric.
In children, since they cannot verbalize symptoms, parents should be careful if the child becomes apathetic, plays less, has body twitches, sleeps more than usual or has completely dry skin. Loss of consciousness or collapse are the last warning signs of heat stroke.
One of Dr. Dollenberg's most important pieces of advice went to the elderly who suffer from hypertension. She drew attention to the fact that blood pressure or sugar medications cannot be taken at the same dose during days of extreme heat. Due to sweating, the body's blood pressure decreases on its own. If the patient takes blood pressure-increasing medications again, their values can drop drastically, leading the patient to faint and unconscious.
"We advise patients that on days with such extreme temperatures, if their blood pressure drops below 12, to take a break for a few days or weeks with these medications. The medications should only be resumed when the blood pressure values begin to rise above 14 again," stated Dr. Aurora Dollenberg.
