A sudden cardiac arrest is an electrical problem in the heart and occurs when the heart suddenly stops pumping blood. If a sudden cardiac arrest is not treated properly and quickly, it will cause sudden death within 10 minutes.
The symptoms of sudden cardiac arrest are immediate and drastic. They include:
Other signs and symptoms may occur before a sudden cardiac arrest, such as fatigue, fainting, blackouts, dizziness, chest pain, shortness of breath, weakness, palpitations or vomiting. However sudden cardiac arrest often occurs with no warning.
The immediate cause of sudden cardiac arrest is usually an abnormality in your heart rhythm, known as an arrhythmia.
The most common cause of cardiac arrest is ventricular fibrillation, an arrhythmia where rapid, erratic electrical impulses, cause your heart chambers or ventricles, to quiver uselessly instead of pumping blood.
Deadly arrhythmias do not usually occur on their own. People with normal, healthy hearts may suffer a cardiac arrest due to an outside trigger such as an electrical shock, the use of illegal drugs or trauma to the chest at the wrong time of the heart’s cycle.
However a cardiac-arrest-inducing arrhythmia usually develops in someone with a pre-existing heart condition. These include:
Sudden cardiac arrest often occurs with no warning and there is a 90% chance of death if it occurs outside a hospital. If you survive a sudden cardiac arrest, your doctor will want to investigate what caused it to identify the underlying cause. Tests may include:
Immediate action is required in order to survive a sudden cardiac arrest. The first 3-5 minutes are the key to survival. The following steps must be taken urgently:
Long term treatment includes:
There is no definite way to know your absolute risk of sudden cardiac arrest, so reducing your overall risk is the best strategy. This includes regular check-ups at your GP, screening for heart disease and living a healthy lifestyle, for example:
If you have a pre-existing heart condition and are at high risk of a sudden cardiac arrest, you may need the following treatment/s:
A sudden cardiac arrest differs from a heart attack. A heart attack occurs when one of the coronary arteries in the heart becomes blocked. Without adequate blood supply, the heart muscle is starved of oxygen and if left untreated it will begin to die. A cardiac arrest is the sudden loss of heart function, breathing and consciousness. It is typically caused by an electrical disturbance in the heart which stops the heart from pumping entirely.
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