Sudden Cardiac Arrest - The Symptoms, Causes, And Treatments

The term cardiac arrest is making its way into more and more conversations everyday. In this article I will explain to you what exactly it is, and how anyone can save the victims life in a matter of minutes! The purpose of this article is to explain to you what exactly cardiac arrest is and what any average person can do to help.
Sudden Cardiac Arrest: The Whole Story
The heart has an in-house electrical system that sets and maintains the rhythm of the heartbeat. Troubles and complications can result in abnormal heart rhythms called arrhythmias. In an episode of arrhythmia the heart will very in speed, it will either beat too slow, fast, or stop beating. Sudden cardiac arrest occurs when the heart develops an arrhythmia that will causes it to stop beating immediately. Sudden cardiac arrest differs from heart attacks, which is a situation where a person's heart continues to beat, but blood flow is restricted or blocked all together. Causes of cardiac arrest include electrocution, drowning, choking, and coronary heart disease. However, ventricular fibrillation resulting from a heart attack has been identified as the leading cause of sudden cardiac arrest. This irregular heart rhythm can cause the heart to suddenly cease pumping blood regardless of limited blood flow.
Sudden cardiac arrest is extremely dangerous, a person experiencing an episode will die within a few minutes if proper medical attention is not received. However, people are much less likely to die if they have early cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillation. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is a fancied up word for CPR. The process of defibrillation is administering an electrical shock to a persons body to attempt to start and restore the heart rhythm to normal. Up until recently, defibrillation could only be administered by an emergency response team that took an average of 12 minutes to arrive. With the advent of the AED, it is now possible for an average citizen to administer quick and effective treatment to a person experiencing this particular episode. Today's typical AED unit, which stands for automated external defibrillator, is designed to be extremely powerful and more importantly, user-friendly. Popular Automated external defibrillator units today have built in audio and visual communication devices which show a person what to do with clear and easy to understand pictures with descriptive text directions that are easily understood. This awesome feature literally will lead you through resuscitating a person undergoing an episode of cardiac arrest, from prepping a patient and using the AED correctly, to administering CPR and rescue breathing. The AED unit is an all in one unit that packs extremely powerful medical equipment to deliver the most advanced cardiac arrest treatment.
Sudden cardiac arrest isa very real problem that claims an increasing number of lives here in the U.S. As the technology of today advances, we are better able to diagnose and understand sudden cardiac arrest. Through the use of these AED units, we can can help put a stop to death due to sudden cardiac arrest.