Knowing Symptoms Of Heart Attack And Stroke Might Help Life!

Heart attack and stroke are two different conditions but they do have something in common. First, they belong to a class of diseases known as cardiovascular disease that involve the heart or blood vessels. Then both heart attack and stroke are caused by blockage of blood vessels. The difference is a heart attack occurs when there is a blockage in an artery in the heart that leads to damaged heart muscle, whiles stroke is a blockage of an artery that leads to the brain.

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death globally. So, knowing their symptoms and getting medical help in time may save life.

Symptoms of heart attack include chest pain, discomfort in other parts of the body like neck, arms, jaw, back or stomach, shortness of breath, lightheadedness, nausea and cold sweating. Women are more likely to have symptoms such as unusual fatigues, shortness of breath, nausea or vomiting, dizziness or lightheadedness, discomfort in the neck, shoulder or upper back, and discomfort in gut.

People who suspect they have a heart attack should immediately call for emergency medical help. If they cannot do it themselves, they should ask someone nearby to do it for them. In the meantime, they should stop all activities and try to stay calm and wait for the ambulance to come. If you are with someone who might have a heart attack and becomes unconscious, you should start CPR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation). You should call emergency dispatcher who can talk you through the steps until help arrives, if you do not know how to do it.

Being a lifesaving technique, CPR is useful in situations like heart attack or near drowning, in which someone's breathing or heartbeat has stopped. Keeping oxygenated blood flowing to the brain and other vital organs is important. This is because when the heart stops, the lack of oxygenated blood can cause brain damage in only a few minutes, and a person may just die within 8 to 10 minutes.

Stroke symptoms, on the other hand, do not include any pain or discomfort. They are more likely associated with losing feeling or the ability to move. Stroke often affects only one side of the body. People who are suspected of having a stroke can have signs like sudden, severe headache with no known cause, confusion (trouble in speaking or understanding), numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg and usually on one side of the body, loss of vision in one or both eyes or having double vision, trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance, or coordination.

As stroke can cause lasting brain damage, long-term disability or even death, quickly calling emergency medical help is paramount. The sooner treatment starts, the better chance of having a full discovery.

How To Save A Cardiac Arrest Victim?

Each year, there are between 300,000 and 400,000 deaths in the United States from cardiac arrest. Most cardiac arrest deaths occur outside the hospital. The current out-of-hospital survival rates are very low: between 1 and 5 percent.

Cardiac arrest usually occurs when the heart's electrical activity becomes disrupted and the heartbeat gets dangerously fast (ventricular tachycardia) or chaotic (ventricular fibrillation). As a result, irregular heart rhythm (arrhythmia) occurs and the heart stops beating effectively and cannot adequately pump blood. But if an electric shock from an AED can be delivered in time across the chest and through the heart, the fatal rhythm of ventricular fibrillation can be turned back to a normal rhythm.

An AED (automated external defibrillator) is a device that can be attached to a person’s chest. It can sense the heart's rhythm during cardiac arrest and in some cases, deliver an electric shock to get the heart beating again. The device, when used together with CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) by trained persons offers the best chance of survival for a person who suffers a sudden cardiac arrest. CPR can keep some blood flowing to the heart and brain for a short time.

People who has a cardiac arrest will suddenly lose consciousness. So when one sees someone pass out, the first thing he or she should do is to check whether the victim is unconscious and not breathing. Once confirmed the victim is unresponsive, an ambulance should be called immediately and an AED should be secured right away. AEDs are now commonly available in many public places including the shopping malls, office buildings, sports arenas, golf courses, schools, and airports and airplanes.

CPR should then be started on the victim until the AED arrives. Once the device is switched on, voice prompts will advise what to do. Sweat, if any, should be wiped from the chest of the victim before attaching the electrode pads to the bare chest. The first pad should be placed on the victim's upper right side, just below the collarbone, while the second pad is placed just below and to the left of the left nipple. The device will advise if shock is advised. If shock is required, the helper should make sure no one is touching the victim before pressing the button. The helper should continue to follow the voice prompts until the ambulance arrives.

Nevertheless, one should note that an AED can only for certain types of cardiac arrest that involves specific types of heart fibrillation, and it will not revive everyone in cardiac arrest.

Heart Disease Prevention - Would Bystanders’ CPR Raise Cardiac Arrest Survival?

Cardiac arrest might be reversed if someone nearby can perform CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and use a defibrillator to shock the heart in order to restore a normal heart rhythm within a few minutes. Hence, bystanders can make a difference when somebody collapses with cardiac arrest. Read the full article @

Heart Disease Prevention - Would Bystanders’ CPR Raise Cardiac Arrest Survival?

Heart Disease Prevention - How To Improve Survival Rate Of Cardiac Arrest?

Training people in CPR and having automated external defibrillators (AED) handy will certainly help to increase the survival rate. Meanwhile, emergency medical service personnel must be trained to respond swiftly and correctly. For instance, operators managing 911 calls can be trained to talk people through CPR while waiting an ambulance to come, and the emergency departments need smooth and coordinated responses. To find out more, please click the following link.

Heart Disease Prevention - How To Improve Survival Rate Of Cardiac Arrest?

Heart Disease Prevention - Smartphone App Can Save Cardiac Arrest Victims!

PulsePoint is a smartphone app created to alerts users when someone is in cardiac arrest nearby. On May 9, 2014, a victim who had collapsed outside a gym used the app to alert a bystander who later performed CPR to him and saved his life. Click the following link to know more!

Heart Disease Prevention - Smartphone App Can Save Cardiac Arrest Victims!

Simple CPR Could Have Long-Term Benefit!

CPR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation) is an emergency procedure for a person who has cardiac arrest. Its purpose is to preserve intact brain function until further measures to restore spontaneous blood circulation and breathing. A standard CPR normally involves chest compression together mouth-to-mouth or mouth-to-nose resuscitation.

However, researchers from Descartes University in Paris, France and other institutions from Seattle (USA) and Sweden reported that people suffering cardiac arrest were less likely to die in subsequent years when bystanders performed simple CPR with chest compressions only. The findings were published online on December 10, 2012 in the journal ‘Circulation’.

This was more or less in line with the recommendation by the American Heart Association (AHA): a simpler form of CPR from bystanders is better than no aid at all. However, such recommendation does not apply to CPR performed in hospital or in community by medical personnel or people who are proficient in rescue breathing. Such recommendation also applies only to adult victims.

Data from 2 randomized trials that were reported in the ‘New England Journal of Medicine’ in 2010 were examined. More than 3,200 adults were involved. These victims had cardiac arrest likely due to heart disease problems rather than trauma, suffocating or drowning. Bystanders were instructed by dispatchers via phone to use either the standard or compression only form of CPR.

The researchers were able to follow 78 percent of the participants on longer-term outcomes. The one-year survival rate was found to be about 12 percent for chest compression alone and about 10 percent for standard CPR. Mortality was 9 percent lower in the compression-only group than in the standard CPR group, after adjusting for different factors. The survival benefit persisted over 5 years.

Nevertheless, the study only tracked survival and it could not assess patients’ function level or quality of life. Moreover, the original trials employed in the study were not meant for tracking long-term outcomes.

While there are concerns that victims who collapse of non-cardiac causes might not get the oxygen they need with the compression-only approach, the researchers confirmed they did not observe evidence of harm among those for whom oxygenation and ventilation might in theory be more important.

Victims would require fresh oxygen through mouth-to-mouth resuscitation only if they have been down for a longer or unknown period of time, according to other health experts. The majority of cardiac arrest events are likely caused by heart disease problems. It is most probably that some oxygen still remains in the blood when the victim’s heart has stopped for a short period of time. So proceeding with chest compression only should be beneficial for most circumstances.

How Does Bee Gees’ Song Relate to CPR?

Do you find it interesting? When I saw a report titled “CPR with Stayin’ Alive Tune”, I was very surprise and I bet you would too. How did these two different entities relate to each other? By the way, CPR stands for cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Guess what, a small research conducted by the University of Illinois medical school found that doctors and students could maintain close to the ideal number of chest compressions when they did CPR and at same time listened to the song Stayin’ Alive.

Stayin’ Alive is a song by the Bee Gees, released as a single in 1977, and was considered as one of The Bee Gees' most popular and recognizable songs. It was played in the opening scene of the popular disco film, ‘Saturday Night Fever’.

According to announcement made by the researchers on October 16, 2008, the old disco song, at 103 beats per minute, has almost the perfect rhythm to help jump-start a stopped heart. This is very close to 100 chest compressions per minute, as recommended by The American Heart Association.

Although CPR can triple survival rates for cardiac arrest when performed properly, many people hesitate to do it because they either are not certain about or have difficulty maintaining the proper rhythm. Stayin' Alive, which has a way of being stuck in one’s head, can help with this.

15 students and doctors were involved in the study, which consisted of two parts. First, they did CPR on mannequins while listening to the song on iPods, and the chest compressions were timed with the song’s beat. 5 weeks later, they did the same drill without the music but they were asked to think of the song while performing the compressions. The average number of compressions recorded was 109 for the first and 113 for the second time.

This showed that the song actually helped people who already know how to perform CPR, and this should warrant larger, more definitive studies with real patients or untrained people, according to the researchers.

In fact, The American Heart Association has been using the song as a training tip for CPR instructors for about 2 years.

A 28-year-old medical resident who participated in the study said he has revived real patients by keeping the song in his head while doing CPR. He admitted that he was not really a disco fan and he has been told that he has a complete lack of rhythm. However, he was surprise the song worked for him.

Modified CPR Could Save More Life!

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a life-saving medical procedure that is useful in retrieving a victim who experiences certain life-threatening emergencies including heart attack, cardiac arrest, or respiratory arrest that cause the breathing or heartbeat to stop.

Standard CPR involves compressions of the chest, but the modified one involves pumping both the abdomen and the chest at the same time. It was found that such modified CPR could double the survival rate of victims who collapse with a heart attack

A 5-year study in Poland jointly conducted by Katowice's Silesian School of Medicine, Nowy Targ's City Hospital, and Dabrowa Gornicza's City Hospital has found that this modified form of CPR revived 38 percent of patients, compared to 16 percent saved by the standard CPR. Meanwhile, the rate of those discharged from hospital after a sudden-collapse was also improved from 10 percent to 24 percent.

These results were presented in September 2007 at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Vienna, which had more than 25,000 attendees.

In the study, the modified method had been performed on the 207 patients with an average age of 71, who had suddenly collapsed and become unconscious from 2002 to 2006. Then results were compared with that of a group of 138 similar patients, with an average age of 69 on whom standard CPR had been used in 2000 and 2001.

Standard CPR is no doubt a resuscitative procedure to treat those experiencing sudden cardiac arrest, however, it is effective in only 5 to 10 percent of patients due to insufficient arterial pressure generated by chest compressions alone. In view of this, the researchers introduced simultaneous abdominal compressions.

According to the study, the modified method not just raised the survival rate, but also caused fewer complications than standard CPR. Hence, they recommended that it should be made an element of training courses in resuscitation.

One should also note that CPR is unlikely to restart the heart. Its purpose is to maintain a flow of oxygenated blood to the brain and the heart so that tissue death could be delayed and chances for a successful resuscitation without permanent brain damage could be extended.

Defibrillators May Save Lives In Public Places!

Every year, some 300,000 Americans die from sudden cardiac arrest, which should be differentiated from heart attack. In fact, a heart attack may actually cause sudden cardiac death either during the first few hours of the heart attack or up to many years after the attack.

We can consider sudden cardiac death as an electrical malfunction while heart attack as one that is caused by blocked arteries (plumbing malfunction). Sudden cardiac arrest is a potentially deadly event, in which heart stops contracting and fails to pump blood properly.

When such event occurs in public places like airport or shopping mall, any bystanders could save the life of the victim using automatic external defibrillator (AED). A study conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore reported that bystanders using battery-operated defibrillators might be saving more than 500 lives every year in the United States and Canada. The findings were presented at an American Heart Association meeting in Orlando, Florida, on November 5, 2008.

The automatic defibrillators are of laptop size and are portable. They come with full set of instructions so that even the untrained bystanders could be guided through the rescue process. The defibrillator analyzes the person's heart rhythm and delivers a shock when necessary through the electrodes placed on the victim’s chest.

In the study, the researchers analyzed patient records from more than 10,600 incidents of cardiac arrest called into 911 emergency telephone lines in the 11 cities in the United States and Canada.

It is found that bystanders administered CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) in nearly 30 percent of the cases, while in 2.4 percent of the cases, bystanders offered CPR together with automated defibrillator. There was only 259 patients had been offered an AED by a bystander. Their survival is very good. If patients needed a shock and device shocked them, their survival rate is 36 percent, as compared to the overall rate of 7 percent.

Since the AEDs are available in public places, where people could get them fast in case of emergency, the survival rates with a defibrillator are about 2.5 times better than with the help of CPR alone.

The study advocates wider use of AEDs as the cost is considerably affordable. According to the researchers, for example, putting in AEDs in a building with 1,000 people will cost US$3,000, which is less than the price of a cup of latte.

What Is The Chance of Surviving Sudden Cardiac Arrest Outside Hospital?

There is no doubt that time is very critical if a person is to survive sudden cardiac arrest (heart attack). According to the American Heart Association, the chance of survival from sudden cardiac arrest decreases by 7 to 10 percent with every passing minute.

The average survival rate in Singapore for people who suffer from heart attack outside hospital is rather poor: between 1.5 percent and 3 percent. This is because of the small number of people here who are trained in CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) and the limited effectiveness of performing CPR.

CPR is a technique that involves mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing and chest compressions. It helps artificially circulate oxygen-rich blood for the victims, keeping their brain and vital organs alive. In most cases of sudden cardiac arrest, the heart can also have an irregular rhythm, which can be corrected using an automated external defibrillator (AED).

AED is a portable computerized machine delivers an electric shock to re-establish normal heartbeats. Being easy to use, AED can allow non-medically trained people help save lives. The people who use it just need to follow the step-by-step instructions from the machine via voice prompt. In Singapore, AEDs have been installed at sports centers, stadiums and swimming pools, as well as major public places such as hotels and shopping centers.

The American Journal of Sports Medicine revealed that around 1 to 5 sudden cardiac deaths occur each year for every 1 million athletes below the age of 35. People with the age below 35 years old having sudden cardiac arrest are usually the result of coronary artery disease. Sudden cardiac arrest victims who are below 35 years old are due to a genetic disorder known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), an abnormal thickening of the heart muscle.

People with this type of disorder are predisposed to abnormal heart rhythms, which can be triggered during vigorous exercise. Though most of the reports of athletes dying from sudden cardiac arrest were men, this does not rule out women.

In fact, HCM could happen equally in both sexes. One possible reason for more reported cases of cardiac arrest in men is that men are more likely to engage in vigorous and competitive sports. In comparison, women's level of participation in intensive sports is much lower than that of men. That is why women are less exposed to exercise-induced cardiac arrest.

Recognizing the warning signs of a possible heart condition is very important. Those who get palpitations, breathlessness or dizziness, and those who have a family history of heart problems should consult their doctor.

Unfortunately, identifying athletes who are vulnerable to the condition is not so easy. Some heart problems cannot be detected in tests, and screening for rare congenital conditions can be expensive, too.

Nevertheless, people who want to engage in vigorous physical activity, such as marathons or hiking expeditions, are still urged to go for a thorough screening.