We've got them in our NHS Trusts. They look like surprisingly simple devices with a friendly pre-recorded voice talking you through checking the patient, making sure you called for help, placing the pads in the right location and then analysing the heart beat before deciding to zap or not. It also talks you through CPR and even senses the pace at which you do chest compression and tells you to speed up or slow down, and the latest model throws in little encouragements like: "You're doing really well" etc. It's pretty amazing tech, really.
Yeah, a first aid instructor and I were musing that the automatic defibrillator should play that track during the CPR phase to help the aide keep the right tempo.
Fun fact: "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen uses the same rhythm, and as such can be substituted for "Staying Alive" by those with a certain sense of humour.
Definitely sounds like hypomagnesia was the cause here. The tachycardia (high heart rate) and irregularity are classic signs. The beta blocker would also be standard treatment to get that HR down and make them more comfortable. Which one is used varies - there's loads of them. Excellent point. That's exactly what family members need to do, it really does help. Recognising a problem and seeking aid is all anybody can ask for. Well done, seriously. It's such an important skill and one I wish was taught as standard in our schools and workplaces. Whilst at medical school I trained somewhere in the region of 7-800 schoolkids in CPR/basic life support because I feel it is that important. Equally, I think it's probably the limit of what the general populace needs to know for the most part. AEDs are excellent, and are the only thing to buy unless you've got proper full-on medical training. The NHS uses them widely, with the hospital defibs being dual mode (AED & manual) so that nursing staff/healthcare assistants/allied health professions can use them without needing to know how to recognise shockable rhythms. AEDs are fairly idiot proof as well, with clear instructions and the talking box throughout. So my recommendation not to buy a defib is not because people can't use them, or actually need a lot of training, it's simply because they're only useful in a very limited set of circumstances (sorry TV shows) and painfully expensive.
http://www.aerohealthcare.co.uk/ That's the UK distro for them. No prices though. http://www.defibshop.co.uk/heartsine-samaritan-pad-300p-with-graphic-interface £800.
Yes the use cases are narrow, but like that obscure tool sitting in the back of your tool box, you never need it but on that rare occasion you actually do, you are glad to have it. That being said they are probably best suited to large public buildings like work places, shopping centres and McDonald's.
Cei, my worry is that if this happens again she could go into cardiac arrest before I (or whoever) can get her to hospital. In that scenario, would a AED in the house be her best chance? Edit: I should say that the staff at the hospital were fantastic. The two Doctors who assessed her (general and cardiac), the nurses and the porters. They were all top-drawer and deserve the highest praise. The ward staff even kept me fed with some very tasty tuna sandwiches.
Like everyone's said. An AED can help for 'x' number of people among 'y' number of incidents. I don't know the statistics relating to the likelihood of it being useful among your narrow (1 relative) group of prospective recipients of care. If this is something you feel will give you peace of mind, and don't mind the expense then why not help as many people as you can? You could get an AED, and make it accessible to the public if they call 999 to get the access code. Check out the heartsafe website. Possibly you could partner up with others locally, scout groups, local fundraisers etc. http://www.heartsafe.org.uk/Become-Heartsafe/Community-Volunteers Alternatively, there may be a public AED very close by anyway. Worth looking.
An obscure, £800 tool that requires regular maintenance and expenditure. It's not a screwdriver. Even defibs in public places rarely get used, so their cost per use is really high. I know it's confusing, but I'm trying to say it isn't like TV or movies. In many ways the public see defibs as the magic answer. However a "cardiac arrest" isn't always or even often, shockable. A defib is not the solution to cardiac arrythmias. Your best bet is to simply call an ambulance - they'll have a defib with them if needed, plus a load of the other stuff that is needed otherwise. Your best thing, if anybody goes in to "arrest" is good quality CPR. It's even the same in hospital - it's the speed and quality of our chest compressions rather than the fancy meds and the occasional times we shock. Outside of an arrest, the best thing is to recognise when things are going south and you need that ambulance fast. Don't think about taking them to hospital yourself. Call the ambulance service. Of course, if you really really want a defib...then that's your choice. Learn how to use it. Learn the CPR that goes alongside. However I think you have, understandably, had a big scare related to a loved one and are having the natural reaction of grabbing for anything that might help.
Ah ok, from previous posts I thought (in the hands of a monkey) defib=bad, AED=good (being automatic and all). I just want to be prepared the best I can.
An AED is just a defib that has an automatic mode enabling people with less training (or none in a pinch) to use it. The same limitations apply. Go do a CPR course, you'll be well prepared then
I'm seriously considering looking into some kind of medical training. Possibly paramedic, I don't know yet. I know more about fixing computers than I do about fixing people. I'm not happy with that at all. Cheers Guin.
We actually just did our annual CPR / AED refresher at the fire dept tonight. At the Basic Life Support level, which is generally what you get from your local fire department, we use the same basic idiot - proof devices they have in public places. Studies have shown that the software is as good as a doctor in making a shock / no shock decision. Despite what you see in movies and games, there is almost no way to screw up and hurt someone with a modern AED. Here is a little anatomy and physiology of cardiac resuscitation if anyone is interested... The heart is basically a muscle about the size of your fist that acts as two connected pumps to circulate blood. The smaller right side of the heart collects deoxygenated blood from the body and pumps it to the lungs where it dumps the CO2 and trades it for oxygen. The blood then flows back to the larger left side of the heart and is pumped throughout the rest of the body. Being a muscle, the heart also needs a steady supply of oxygen and sugar (glucose) to keep functioning. In order to get these, the first arteries after the left side of the heart supply the heart itself with blood. When these pipes, called coronary arteries, get blocked, the part of the heart they supply gets starved of oxygen and starts dying. This is commonly known as a heart attack. The muscle really doesn't take a joke well and when irritated by lack of blood flow it can start spasaming instead of pumping and then nothing in the body is getting blood flow. This spasaming is referred to as Ventricular Fibrillation, or VF for short. As I mentioned before, VF is not a perusing rhythm, nothing is actually being pumped, the heart is just flopping around uselessly. Since it's not pumping, neither the heart or brain are getting oxygen and both start dying within minutes. The theory behind CPR is that by manually pressing on the chest we can circulate blood and get oxygen to the cells even if the heart muscle itself is damaged or otherwise not working. The good news is that high quality CPR can perform the same functions as the heart and perfume the brain and body. The bad news is that you don't have very long between when the heart stops pumping effectively and when irreversible damage takes place. Lile, less than 5 minutes. The lesson here is that if the victim has to wait for the Fire Department to show up before CPR begins you might as well just call the funeral home. CPR can keep the person sort of alive, but it can't solve the problem that caused the heart to stop beating in the first place. Good CPR plus an AED sometimes can. An AED first checks to see what the heart is doing and if it's in a certain set of conditions then the AED will actually use a jolt of electricity to stop the heart. What this does is reset the internal pacemaker within the heart and sometimes it will re-start pumping on it's own. Doing CPR first gets blood and oxygen to the heart muscle and then the AED resets it and hopefully it will start working again on it's own. To get back to the OPs situation, I would recommend not only taking a CPR class, but getting a hold of your local fire department or ambulance service and ask if you can do a CPR practice session with them. The classes for the general public, while not bad, tend to be taught by people who have never done it for real and are intentionally kept simple to encourage people to try it at all. Good CPR is a technically and physically challenging process that requires skill and practice and coaching to master, but it's one of the few things we do that actually saves lives.
Interesting stuff, cheers. I've already had proper CPR training, from qualified army medics, using the training dummy ("resusy-annie"?). I was taught it during my basic military training in the early 90's. The only thing that's changed since I was taught as far as I can see is the ratio of compressions to breaths. I can easily make that adjustment. Edit: I had a chat with my mother last night and gently suggested the idea of keeping an AED in the house, "just in case". She wasn't keen on the idea at all so if I do get one, I'll have to do it discreetly and either hide it or keep it with a neighbour. This isn't ideal, obviously, because it should be clearly visible for anyone to be able to find & use. "Mothers", eh? Who'd have 'em?
To be blunt, if I went in to cardiac arrest I wouldn't want a defibrillator. Or anything. I'm 31 and I have an advanced care directive stating this. Your mum may be trying to express that she doesn't want any heroic measures.
The reason she doesn't want one in the house is because she wants to carry on living as normal a life as possible, without being constantly reminded of what might happen. She has no problem with defibs in general (when she was first admitted and she/we were being told what might happen, there was talk of possibly shocking her heart if the other treatments didn't work and she was fine with that). It's not the same way I would handle things but I have to respect her decision, or at least appear to be respecting her decision, if you see what I mean.
