Critical care thermoregulation: how to keep your cool and avoid feeling the burn

Emergency and critical care patients commonly present to veterinary hospitals with abnormal temperatures or are at high risk of developing these variations during hospitalisation. This article reviews the pathophysiology of normal thermoregulatory responses in the feline and canine patient, including physiological complications seen with uncontrolled abnormal temperatures. It explores evidence-based temperature correction techniques while also considering primary disease processes and clinical syndromes with associated compensatory mechanisms in the hopes of assisting veterinary professionals to consider all aspects of the individual critical patient before intervention occurs. The review demonstrated that severe consequences could occur from overzealous and inappropriate temperature correction and further harm can be reduced or prevented by slowing down and considering the causes of thermoregulatory variations, before initiating active warming or cooling techniques.