Army Deployed Medical Practice Test 2026 - Free Medical Practice Questions and Study Guide for Deployment

Actively applying external warmth to rewarm the casualty is the method used to provide external heating. In hypothermia, especially in a trauma setting, you want to raise the core temperature promptly, and this is achieved by active external rewarming—using heat sources such as radiant heaters, warm blankets, or forced-air warming devices to transfer heat to the body from outside.

Passive rewarming, by contrast, relies on insulating the patient and preserving body heat without adding heat from outside. It helps, but it doesn’t deliver heat directly, so the warming is slower and less effective in someone who is significantly cold. Using ice packs would lower the temperature further, and not applying any external heating would do nothing to raise the core temperature.

So the approach that provides external heating is active external rewarming, using external heat sources to rewarm the casualty.