Influence of the temperature on the moment of awakening in patients treated with therapeutic hypothermia after cardiac arrest.

Introduction: Target temperature management (TTM) has shown to reduce brain damage after an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (CA), but the time to neurological recovery is not defined yet. We sought to determine the time these patients need to regain consciousness, as well as factors associated with a late post-arrest awakening.

Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of patients cooled to 32-34°C during 24h after CA, who regained neurological responsiveness after rewarming.