Posted on 09/09/2006 7:12:02 AM PDT by FairOpinion
Chest pain, breathlessness call for quick action, study finds
"Sudden cardiac death" often isn't all that sudden, and lives can be saved by training people about the symptoms of impending cardiac arrest and what action to take, a German study shows.
"A study of 406 sudden cardiac death patients indicates that they often have symptoms, especially the typical symptom angina pectoris [chest pain] for as long as 120 minutes before an arrest," said study lead author Dr. Dirk Muller, a cardiologist and emergency physician at the Medical Clinic II, Cardiology and Pulmonology, in Berlin.
"Two-thirds of cardiac arrest patients have a history that predisposes them to sudden cardiac death," Muller added, so efforts to reduce the toll should focus on teaching their family members to recognize the symptoms and how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
In the study, 72 percent of cardiac-arrest cases occurred at home, and two-thirds were witnessed by others.
The researchers collected information about symptoms preceding cardiac arrest for 323 patients. The most common warning sign was chest pain, which occurred for at least 20 minutes, and, in some cases, for hours, before cardiac arrest. Chest pain occurred in 25 percent of the patients whose cardiac arrest was witnessed by other persons and in one-third of other cases.
Breathlessness was the next most common symptom, seen in 17 percent of witnessed arrests and 30 percent of other cases. Other common symptoms were nausea, vomiting, dizziness or fainting.
CPR was performed on 57 patients, and 13 of them survived to be discharged from the hospital. The survival rate for those who did not get CPR was 4 percent -- 13 of 349 patients.
One notable fact was that CPR was more likely to be performed when cardiac arrest occurred in public cases -- 26 percent of the time, compared to 11 percent of the time when the attack occurred at home.
The study results were expected to be published in this week's issue of Circulation.
There are two significant messages from the study, said Dr. Ann Bolger, a professor of clinical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association.
"The first is that people need to be educated about how cardiac symptoms can present," Bolger said. "We always try to encourage people not to discount such things as shortness of breath, things that really should demand a response, because they could be a harbinger of early death.
"The second thing is that the family is important," she added. "Many of these patients have a known history of heart problems. They are not taking us by surprise. We know that one of these things can happen to them, so, it is important to get education that if there is chest pain that does not respond to nitroglycerine, they should call 911. When a patient has active heart disease, I try to make sure that they and their family get basic training about calling 911 and get the emergency medical service on the scene. People who don't get CPR before they get to the hospital have much worse outcomes."
According to the American Heart Association, cardiac arrest is the sudden loss of heart function. The victim may or may not have diagnosed heart disease; the most common cause of death is coronary heart disease.
The AHA estimates that 330,000 Americans die each year from heart disease before reaching a hospital and urges CPR training on a large scale.
More information
For more on CPR, visit the American Heart Association.
"Stubborn people die. They don't want to make a fuss and show that they are vulnerable."
===
It's not just the people, it's the doctors, who treat MOST people who come to them with symptoms, as if they are idiots and are just making it up. This is the norm. So people don't want to go to the doctor, just to be told they are hypochondriac idiots.
The doctors's attitudes need to change and they need to take people's symptoms seriously, instead of being dismissive.
A few people on this thread mentioned experiences and I have seen many such examples, even when the complaints came from people with known heart disease.
we, as human beings, are all vulnerable to a variety of things.
when you can't see well, you get your eyes checked for glasses.
when you can't hear well, you get your hearing checked for hearing aids.
when you suffer some of these cardiovascular symptoms, don't ignore them,
get to a specialist right away.
your quality of life depends on it and it's so worth it!
Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:
1. *Ask the individual to SMILE.
2. *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.
3. *Ask the person to SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently)
(i.e. . .It is sunny out today) If he or she has trouble with any of these tasks,
call 9-1-1 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.
lol! i sure hope they outgrow it...mine too ;)
Basil, I was glad to see your post because I remember your thread a few years ago alerting people to the importance of aspirin for sudden heart attacks based on your own experience. Do you have a link for that thread?
This is a great thread. Many local chapters of the American Heart Association are having their annual "Heartwalk" soon and I encourage everybody to participate. Anybody who experiences chest pain or shortness of breath needs to be checked out. Visit the American Heart Association website for tons of informative information http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=1200000
That is the biggest cause of death!
I refused to go to the hospital after a sharp pain in my chest and feeling like I had a golf ball lodged in my throat.
After constant harping I conceded to go to the drug store and check mt blood pressure on a free machine. 50/30..... 3" tear in my aorta at the valve.
6 years and counting now with 3" of rayon in mt aorta because of my capitulating and going to the hospital.
wow! close call! so glad you listened to those
little voices and got checked. many more years
of better health to you :)
LOL.
Someone loves you and didn't want to let you go.
However....may I say...as an entomologist...not a doctor...that the paint is dry in your room in Heaven. Enjoy each day.
BA
"A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim
within 3 hours
he can totally reverse the effects of a
stroke...totally. "
Example case: James Dobson
Initial newsletter (1998)
The first three paragraphs are about the resolved stroke...
A MUST-READ for EVERYONE!
http://www.family.org/docstudy/newsletters/a0002430.cfm
follow-up newsletter (2003)
http://www.family.org/docstudy/newsletters/a0026368.cfm
I did think it interesting that The LA Times left out that "sausage and waffles" part:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-johnson1sep01,0,7906879.story?coll=la-story-footer
I just had a stent put in on Thursday. The docs have me on baby aspirin, along with a virtual "salad" of other pills.
By the way, I was having these pains for 2 months before they were able to get me in to have the procedure done
I'm not sure how to take that however post surgery, I was given at least 20 years as an estimation of life pertaining to the health of my heart.
Without surgery I was given minutes to hours.... That brings on another point, although I was in my early 40's at the time, I was told I had the heart health of an 18 year old without any scare tissue which is rare at my age.
Point being, the healthiest of people are just as susceptible to complications as anyone else is.
FYI, I am doing fine and living a normal life less taking preventative medications for BP. : - )
I take an aspirin every day, and I buy them at Wally world, LOL! My cardiologist told me to take one every day.
When I had my Heart Attack, I had been having chest pains for about a month . . .
excellent read! thanks!
swift and knowledgeable
intervention, by everyone,
is so crucial!
We're now finally starting to see doctors paying attention to heart disease in women.
My story has a happy ending - my heart attack was 14 years ago, and now at the age of 62, I'm living a normal life, with medication and good habits: keeping my weight down, exercising (Curves for Women and walking). Retiring from a stressful job has also worked wonders.
***I just had a stent put in on Thursday. The docs have me on baby aspirin, along with a virtual "salad" of other pills.
By the way, I was having these pains for 2 months before they were able to get me in to have the procedure done***
Welcome to the club!
bump
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