Cardiac Arrest..

[Aditya]

Cardiac Arrest

AHA Recommendation

The American Heart Association urges the public to be prepared for cardiac emergencies:

• Know the warning signs of cardiac arrest. During cardiac arrest a victim loses consciousness, stops normal breathing and loses pulse and blood pressure.
• Give cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to help keep the cardiac arrest victim alive until emergency help arrives. CPR keeps blood and oxygen flowing to the heart and brain until defibrillation can be administered.

What is cardiac arrest?

Cardiac arrest is the sudden, abrupt loss of heart function. The victim may or may not have diagnosed heart disease. It's also called sudden cardiac arrest or unexpected cardiac arrest. Sudden death (also called sudden cardiac death) occurs within minutes after symptoms appear.

What causes cardiac arrest?

The most common underlying reason for patients to die suddenly from cardiac arrest is coronary heart disease. Most cardiac arrests that lead to sudden death occur when the electrical impulses in the diseased heart become rapid (ventricular tachycardia) or chaotic (ventricular fibrillation) or both. This irregular heart rhythm (arrhythmia) causes the heart to suddenly stop beating. Some cardiac arrests are due to extreme slowing of the heart. This is called bradycardia.

Other factors besides heart disease and heart attack can cause cardiac arrest. They include respiratory arrest, electrocution, drowning, choking and trauma. Cardiac arrest can also occur without any known cause.

Can cardiac arrest be reversed?

Brain death and permanent death start to occur in just 4 to 6 minutes after someone experiences cardiac arrest. Cardiac arrest can be reversed if it's treated within a few minutes with an electric shock to the heart to restore a normal heartbeat. This process is called defibrillation. A victim's chances of survival are reduced by 7 to 10 percent with every minute that passes without defibrillation. Few attempts at resuscitation succeed after 10 minutes.

How many people survive cardiac arrest?

No statistics are available for the exact number of cardiac arrests that occur each year. It's estimated that more than 95 percent of cardiac arrest victims die before reaching the hospital. In cities where defibrillation is provided within 5 to 7 minutes, the survival rate from sudden cardiac arrest is as high as 49 percent.

What can be done to increase the survival rate?

Early CPR and rapid defibrillation combined with early advanced care can result in high long-term survival rates for witnessed cardiac arrest. For instance, in June 1999, automated external defibrillators (AEDs) were mounted 1 minute apart in plain view at Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airports. In the first 10 months, 14 cardiac arrests occurred, with 12 of the 14 victims in ventricular fibrillation. Nine of the 14 victims (64 percent) were revived with an AED and had no brain damage.

If bystander CPR was initiated more consistently, if AEDs were more widely available, and if every community could achieve a 20 percent cardiac arrest survival rate, an estimated 40,000 more lives could be saved each year. Death from sudden cardiac arrest is not inevitable. If more people react quickly by calling 9-1-1 and performing CPR, more lives can be saved.

This is the Video in which they show how a person is treated if he gets a Cardiac Arrest
Click on the link.. Cardiac arrest

[Aditya]

American Heart Association outlines 'chilling' plan to prevent brain damage after cardiac arrest

DALLAS, July 8 – Lowering the body temperature of a person who has been resuscitated after suffering cardiac arrest can help prevent brain damage, according to an international advisory statement published today in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

The American Heart Association and resuscitation councils around the world helped craft the advisory from the Advanced Life Support Task Force of the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR).

Cardiac arrest is the abrupt loss of heart function in a person who may or may not have diagnosed heart disease. No statistics are available for the exact number of sudden cardiac arrests that occur each year. But the American Heart Association estimates that about 250,000 people a year die of coronary heart disease without being hospitalized. That’s about half of all deaths from coronary heart disease – more than 680 Americans each day. Cardiac arrest results from the extremely rapid, chaotic quivering of the heart’s lower chambers, a disorder called ventricular fibrillation. It’s often reversible if treated within a few minutes with an electric shock to the heart from a defibrillator, a device that can allow a normal rhythm to resume.

Because the supply of oxygen-rich blood to the brain is cut off when the heart stops pumping, people who survive a cardiac arrest lasting more than a few minutes often suffer brain damage. Now, two major studies have shown that cooling the body temperature to below normal – mild therapeutic hypothermia – can help prevent that damage, says Jerry P. Nolan, M.D., lead author of the statement and co-chairman of the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation’s Advanced Life Support Task Force.

The procedure, which aims to lower the body temperature to between 89.6 degrees F and 93.2 degrees F, should be started as soon as possible after successful resuscitation and continued for 12 to 24 hours, says Nolan, a consultant in anesthesia and critical care medicine at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, England.

Doctors have known for some time that reducing a person’s body temperature before the heart stops – such as when open-heart surgery is performed – can help prevent brain damage.

“What is so exciting about these new studies is that they showed that even if we cooled the brain after the oxygen supply had been cut off, people did better,” Nolan says.

In both studies, cardiac arrest survivors whose bodies were cooled were less likely to sustain neurological damage, compared with survivors who were not cooled.

A study in Europe used a special mattress with a cover that blew air over the body and used ice bags if necessary to cool the victims for 24 hours once they arrived at the critical care unit. In an Australian study, paramedics applied ice packs to patients’ heads and torsos, with ice applications continuing in the hospital for 12 more hours.

When a patient is successfully resuscitated and the supply of oxygen-rich blood to the brain is restored, it sets off a series of chemical reactions that can continue for up to 24 hours and can cause significant inflammation in the brain, Nolan says.

“Cooling slows down the chemical reactions, thereby lowering inflammation,” he says.

Many more questions remain to be answered – including how to best cool patients, how long they should be chilled, whether paramedics should be taught the procedure and when it’s too late to help. Cooling therapy carries a slightly increased risk of bleeding, infection and abnormal heart rhythms.

In addition, the cooling studies enrolled less than 10 percent of all cardiac arrest patients initially considered for treatment. Researchers studied only patients who met certain strict criteria – such as those with relatively known times of cardiac arrest, good blood pressure and evidence of coma after arrest. Further studies are needed to determine what other groups of cardiac arrest patients might benefit from cooling.

Nevertheless, the task force says the evidence that cooling prevents brain damage is compelling enough to recommend therapeutic hypothermia for some out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients.

The American Heart Association urges people to call 9-1-1 and begin cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) immediately if someone suffers cardiac arrest. If an automated external defibrillator (AED) is available and someone trained to use it is nearby, involve him or her.

However, grabbing a blanket and trying to warm up a cardiac arrest victim could do more harm than good, Nolan adds.

“The sooner the patient is successfully resuscitated and we can start cooling, the better,” he says.

[Aditya]

Post abt how u feel abt this thread???

[Vinod Gopani]

Nice one thx for sharing...............

[bdcosta]

Information such as these are indispensable nowadays since we hear so many people suffering from the cardiac arrest problems. Now its time for us to act promptly so that we know each and every detail that can help us to stay away from this problem. I also would like to know if relying on the online pharmacy is a good option as so many people do nowadays. Would like to hear about this in detai please respond friends.