Cold, flu, cough, rhinitis med. : Hyperthermia english: fever
Introduction
Fever is a symptom of various diseases, whereby the normal core temperature of the body is raised to over 38° Celsius. It can occur in harmless diseases, mostly colds, but also in dangerous diseases. However, it should be noted that the body temperature fluctuates during the course of the day and is not always the same.
Therefore, if the temperature is slightly elevated, it is advisable to measure the fever several times a day. Measuring fever is simple. Most of the time, the fevered patients are already a pale, weakened and sickly sight.
Touching the patient with a high fever can already allow the diagnosis to be made without the actual fever being measured. If you want to make a quantitative fever diagnosis, you need a clinical thermometer to measure the fever. On the basis of the temperatures read off, one can now make a classification into subfebrile or febrile.
However, the cause is not yet clear. In most cases, the fever will not be treated further, because the most common trigger for fever is seasonal infections. Depending on the temperature, a fever-lowering therapy will be initiated (see Lowering Fever).
Different models of clinical thermometers
The clinical thermometer is essential for the exact determination of body temperature and is available in different models. Models containing mercury have been banned since 2009 and should therefore no longer be used. Glass thermometers are not recommended for use with children and babies, as they are easily broken.
When measuring with manual thermometers (expansion thermometers), the contained liquid is expanded by the body temperature. The column of liquid in the thermometer therefore rises and the temperature can then be read on a scale. When measuring with these thermometers, the fever measurement must last for at least 2 minutes to find out the current body temperature.
The advantage of this type of thermometer is that it does not require batteries. The digital clinical thermometers are easier to use. They measure the temperature quickly within 30 to 60 seconds and usually indicate the finished measurement by a beep.
The measured temperature is then shown on a digital display. Furthermore, there are also infrared thermometers that are used for measurements over the ear or forehead. They measure the emitted infrared radiation from the eardrum or forehead. Soother thermometers are also available for measurement over the mouth in babies. All clinical thermometers can be cleaned with warm soapy water.
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