UNDERSTANDING THE LANGUAGE
WHAT IS CPR?
CPR stands for Cardio (Heart) Pulmonary (Lungs) Resuscitation (Revival) and consists of two actions: chest compressions and rescue breaths.
It is an emergency lifesaving measure which is used when someone is not breathing or their heart stops beating. It provides artificial circulation of oxygenated blood to the brain and other vital organs until more definitive medical treatment can restore spontaneous breathing and circulation.
By pushing on the person’s chest and blowing into their mouth, the rescuer is trying to keep the heart pumping and oxygen flowing around the body until an ambulance arrives.
So what needs to happen for you to survive when you have a cardiac arrest? First, someone has to recognise that you have a life-threatening condition and call 911. Next, someone has to begin CPR.
Performing CPR is simply doing manually what the heart has stopped doing by itself. To correct the electrical problem that has led to a cardiac arrest in the first place, you need an AED.
WHAT IS AN AED?
An AED is an Automated External Defibrillator, often referred to as just a defibrillator. The best way to think of this machine is as a mobile device that reboots the heart, just like rebooting a computer. However, it is important to note that an AED only delivers a shock if it detects an electrical problem such as an arrhythmia (and even then, it will only shock two types of arrhythmias: pulseless ventricular tachycardia (v-tach) or ventricular fibrillation (v-fib)). This means that an AED cannot cause damage to a healthy heart or bring back to life a heart in which there is no electrical activity (asystole).
You turn the AED on and let it tell you what to do, like a talking robotic paramedic. Once the pads/electrodes are placed on the patient, the AED will analyse the heartbeat and determine whether a shock is necessary.
It is important to remember that this is not a machine to fear or be nervous of. All you have to do is turn it on and follow the oral instructions. It is there to help, and its presence should be reassuring.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A HEART ATTACK AND SUDDEN CARDIAC ARREST?
A heart attack is a problem with the blood vessels that feed the heart with oxygen – a bit like a plumbing problem where a pipe is blocked. With a heart attack, the blood flow to the heart is blocked and so it cannot get the oxygen that it needs. This situation may often lead to a cardiac arrest.
A cardiac arrest is an electrical problem where the heart malfunctions, losing its proper rhythm and suddenly stops beating.
With a heart attack there are usually symptoms in the lead-up: feeling unwell, nauseous and sometimes even palpitations and chest pains. These are warning signs that something is not quite right with the plumbing and they can last hours, days or weeks. People have even driven themselves to hospital whilst having a heart attack.
With a sudden cardiac arrest, there may be no warning at all. One minute you are chatting to your friend or you see them doing their normal workout, and the next minute they fall to the ground unconscious. The moment they lose consciousness, the clock is ticking. In this case, their heart has suffered an electrical malfunction, which leads to an arrhythmia, and without an electrical shock it cannot usually correct itself.
So why do people get confused between the two? Often a heart attack leads to a cardiac arrest. The heart is unable to pump blood around the body and so the extreme pressure it is under causes the electrics to malfunction and the person suffers a cardiac arrest. Cardiac arrest can also be caused by other things such as drownings, choking, noxious gasses, opioid overdose, certain genetic conditions or even an extreme imbalance of electrolytes in your body.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN ECG, AN EKG AND AN ECHOCARDIOGRAM?
An ECG and an EKG are exactly the same thing. ECG is the abbreviation for an electrocardiogram and EKG is the abbreviation for the equivalent German word Elektrokardiographie.
An ECG/EKG records the electrical signals from the heart, with the use of electrodes placed on the skin, to check for heart irregularities. The signals are shown as waves on an attached computer monitor or printer. This information is used by doctors to tell them more about a heart’s rhythm, rate and electrical activity.
An echocardiogram is a special ultrasound of the heart to assess the structure and function of the heart. It provides the doctors with detailed information on the heart pumping function, heart size, heart valves and other structures in the heart. It also shows patterns of blood flow through the heart. The sound waves produced help give the doctors a live image of the heart and how it is functioning.
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