Cardiac arrest is when the heart suddenly stops pumping blood in your body. This is not the same as a heart attack. Such incidents take place when there is an electrical malfunction in our heart causing irregular heartbeats, or commonly known as Arrhythmia. When the pumping pattern of the blood is disturbed’ then the heart can’t pump blood to the brain, lungs, and the other body parts. Hence the person loses consciousness and has no pulse. This may also be caused as an outcome of a heart attack or myocardial infarction. If the victim does not receive immediate treatment, then death occurs within minutes.
A Cardiac arrest does not affect society as a whole, but it does have a major impact on individuals. According to the doctors, only one in five people can survive a cardiac arrest. The chances of surviving a sudden cardiac arrest decrease every minute by 7-10%. The doctors also stated that a cardiac arrest is as good as heart failure. Any victim of a cardiac arrest must be provided treatment immediately or else they will suffer death.
Since cardiac arrests strike without any warning, there are several ways to identify if a person is struck by one. They are:
- Fatigue or weakness
- Shortness of breath
- Fainting
- Dizziness or lightheadedness
- Heart palpitations
- Chest pain
- Sudden loss of responsiveness
If any of these symptoms are evident then you must immediately call for help. Until any source of help comes, you must check the heartbeats and give constant CPR.
A sudden cardiac arrest directly blocks and affects the cardiovascular system of the victim. Also since the oxygen-rich blood is not being transported to the brain, and there is a deficiency of oxygen in our brain, our nervous system is affected as well. This is also because our nervous system and cardiovascular system is directly connected.
In order to treat the victim suffering from a sudden cardiac arrest, the doctor may use various scientific advances to save the person. The various scientific advances used are:
- Drugs
- Implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD)
- Coronary angioplasty
- Coronary bypass surgery.
- Radiofrequency catheter ablation
- Corrective heart surgery
However, the most common method used is using ICD(implantable cardioverter-defibrillator).
Even though using ICD is proven to be effective there are various issues and effects that come along with using defibrillators.
The ethical issues are that the patient who is using the defillibrators aren’t warned about the side effects of using them and the consequence that come along with them. The economic issues are that these defilibrators are very costly and aren’t affordable by all as it costs about 2000 pounds.
To sum up, a Sudden Cardiac Arrest(SCA) is a life-threatening situation and if not treated immediately then the victim can suffer death.