Sudden cardiac arrest can result in death if it is not treated quickly. With prompt, effective medical care, survival is possible. The likelihood of surviving until help arrives can be increased by performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), utilizing a defibrillator, or even merely doing chest compressions.
Symptoms
Sudden cardiac arrest symptoms are quick and severe and include:
- Abrupt collapse.
- No pulse.
- Not breathing.
- Consciousness loss.
Before the abrupt cardiac arrest, various indications and symptoms might appear. These might consist of:
- Chest Uncomfortable.
- Breathing difficulty.
- Weakness.
- A hammering, fluttering, or quickly beating heart (palpitations).
But unexpected abrupt cardiac arrest frequently happens.
Treatment
Survival after a sudden cardiac arrest depends on quick response.
CPR
For the treatment of sudden cardiac arrest, immediate CPR is essential. Until more sophisticated emergency treatment is available, CPR can offer a crucial connection by keeping a flow of oxygen-rich blood to the body's important organs.
Defibrillation
Advanced treatment for ventricular fibrillation, a kind of arrhythmia that can result in a heart attack, often entails giving the heart an electrical shock via the chest wall. The defibrillation method temporarily pauses the heart and its erratic beat. This frequently enables the return of the regular heartbeat.
Defibrillators are set up to identify ventricular fibrillation and only deliver a shock when necessary. AEDs, or portable defibrillators, are becoming more common in public locations including airports, shopping malls, casinos, fitness clubs, and elder and community centers.
At emergency room
The emergency department personnel will strive to stabilize your health as soon as you enter and address any potential cardiac problems including heart failure or an electrolyte imbalance. The rhythm of your heart may be stabilized with medicine.
Long-term therapy
Your doctor will go over with you or your family what additional tests could assist identify the reason for the heart arrest when you have recovered. In order to lower your chance of experiencing another cardiac arrest, your doctor will also go over preventative therapy choices with you.
Possible treatments include:
Drugs: Different anti-arrhythmic medications are used by doctors to treat arrhythmias or probable arrhythmia consequences long-term or as an emergency. People at risk of sudden cardiac arrest frequently use a category of drugs known as beta blockers.
Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and calcium channel blockers are other potential medications that might be utilized to treat the problem that caused the arrhythmia.
Implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD): Your doctor will probably advise getting an ICD, a battery-operated device implanted close to your left collarbone after your condition has stabilized. Your heart is connected to the ICD via one or more electrode-tipped cables that go through veins.
Your cardiac rhythm is continuously monitored by the ICD. It paces your heart like a pacemaker if it notices a beat that is too sluggish. It sends out low- or high-energy shocks to restore your heart's regular beat if it notices a potentially harmful shift in its rhythm.
Coronary angioplasty: This operation unblocks clogged coronary arteries, improving blood flow to the heart and perhaps lowering the risk of life-threatening arrhythmia. A long, thin tube is inserted into a blocked artery in your heart through an artery, typically in your leg. A unique balloon tip of this catheter momentarily inflates to release the blocked artery.
A metal mesh stent may also be placed into the artery at the same time to keep it open permanently and restore blood flow to your heart. When doctors do a cardiac catheterization to find constricted heart arteries, they can also perform coronary angioplasty at the same time.
Coronary bypass surgery: Bypass surgery, also known as coronary artery bypass grafting, involves attaching veins or arteries to a location outside of a blocked or constricted coronary artery to reestablish blood flow to your heart. This can enhance the blood flow to your heart and lessen the number of times your heart races.
Radiofrequency catheter ablation: It is possible to block a single aberrant electrical route with this technique. Your blood arteries are penetrated by one or more catheters, which are then inserted within your heart. They are situated along electrical channels that your doctor has determined are responsible for your arrhythmia.
Radiofrequency radiation is used to heat the electrodes at the tips of the catheters. This causes the electrical route that is causing your arrhythmia to become blocked, which stops your arrhythmia by destroying a tiny area of cardiac tissue.
Corrective cardiac surgery: Surgery to fix the abnormalities may increase your heart rate and blood flow, lowering your risk of deadly arrhythmias if you have a congenital heart deformity, a damaged valve, or unhealthy heart muscle tissue as a result of cardiomyopathy.