Understand Your Risk for Cardiac Arrest

May 23, 2019Cardiology

Sudden cardiac arrests, as the name suggests, often occur without much prior warning. As such, it has been difficult to detect or predict the occurrence of cardiac arrests to a reasonable degree of accuracy. Approximately, 10% of Indians die each year after suffering from a cardiac arrest.

Insights About Cardiac Arrests

Until now, there wasn’t much clarity over what preceded sudden cardiac arrests; however, recent studies have found data that may help in this regard. A recent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine studied around one thousand patients who had suffered from sudden cardiac arrests; unfortunately, only about a hundred survived. A close follow-up with the patients or their relatives and friends revealed some interesting insights.

It was found that nearly 50% of the victims had some or the other complaints about four weeks prior to having a cardiac arrest; it was also observed that the same complaints recurred around twenty four hours before the arrest.

These complaints were mainly:

Chest pain

Shortness of breath

Heart irregularities

Passing out/fainting

General feeling of unwell-being

Another finding was that a majority of the patients were exposed to certain risk factors such as diabetes, blood pressure, smoking habits and obesity.

Paying Attention To Early Signs

What is worth noting here is that most patients had the above mentioned complaints nearly a week or even a month prior to the actual cardiac arrest. But, these were ignored and not paid due attention in most cases.

What we can learn from these observations is that early warnings can indeed be crucial indicators of an impending cardiac arrest; unfortunately, most people ignore them. It is important to pay attention to these signs, however small, because these may be signs of the bigger issues to come.

Dealing With An Emergency

Now that we have discussed sudden cardiac arrests, an important question is, what should you do if a person suddenly collapses in your presence and you think that a cardiac arrest may be the cause?

The following steps may be taken immediately in such a situation:

Call for medical help or ask someone to do so without delay. It always helps to have emergency contact numbers on your phone.

Check if the victim is conscious or not by shaking or slight slapping of the face. You may try splashing water on the face too.

Check if the victim is breathing by observing movement of the chest or by feeling for passage of air near the nostrils.

If the person is neither responding nor breathing, check for pulse by placing two fingers on the side of the neck. If you can’t feel a pulse around the neck, try checking for a pulse on the wrist.

If you can’t feel a pulse, you should resort to CPR i.e. cardiac pulmonary resuscitation.

CPR – Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

CPR involves a periodic compression of the chest using the base of your palms. The centre of the chest is where compression should be applied. While performing a CPR, one should use the entire body weight to compress the chest. For effective CPR, it is important that 100 compressions be provided every minute. CPR should be continued until the victim shows some movement or until medical help arrives. CPR, as an immediate measure, can be very helpful in saving someone’s life.

Conclusion

Sudden cardiac arrests do take people by surprise, be it the victim or the people around him or her. However, paying attention to early signs can help in avoiding such an emergency altogether. In case a person collapses in your presence, possibly due to an arrest, quick response and knowledge of how to perform a CPR can be immensely helpful in saving the victim’s life.

Disclaimer: This content including advice provides generic information only. It is in no way a substitute for qualified medical opinion. Always consult a specialist or your own doctor for more information.