Posted by North Ohio Heart Center and Ohio Medical Group on Thu, Oct 01, 2009
According to the American Heart Association October is Sudden Cardiac Awareness Month. So here is some of the basic information that they offer about CPR, which is short for “cardiopulmonary resuscitation”.
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Sudden cardiac arrest is most often caused by ventricular fibrillation (VF)--an abnormal heart rhythm.
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Cardiac arrest can also occur after the onset of a heart attack or as a result of electrocution or near-drowning.
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Recognizing the signs: When sudden cardiac arrest occurs, the victim collapses, becomes unresponsive to gentle shaking, stops normal breathing and after two rescue breaths, still isn’t breathing normally, coughing or moving.
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Death from sudden cardiac arrest is not inevitable. If more people knew CPR, more lives could be saved.
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About 80 percent of all cardiac arrests (outside of a hospital) occur at home, so being trained to perform CPR can mean saving the life of a loved one.
- Effective CPR, provided immediately after cardiac arrest, can double a victim’s chance of survival.
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CPR helps maintain vital blood flow to the heart and brain and increases the amount of time that an electric shock from a defibrillator can be effective.
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Brain death starts to occur four to six minutes after someone experiences cardiac arrest if no CPR and defibrillation occurs during that time.
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If bystander CPR is not provided, a sudden cardiac arrest victim’s chances of survival fall 7 percent to 10 percent for every minute of delay until defibrillation.
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There are 294,851 emergency medical services-treated out-of-hospital cardiac arrests annually in the United States.
Learning CPR can give your loved one time to receive needed immediate care in a hospital Emergency Department and be seen by a
NOHC Cardiologist. NOHC provides state-of-the-art cardiology services. However, we believe that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Come to our
heart center so we can help you prevent the need for emergency services.