Cardiac Arrest

Cardiac arrest is the stopping of the pumping action of the heart due to a loss of the ability of the muscular activity of the heart. The most common cause of it is a heart attack, also known as a myocardial infarction, but it can also be caused by stopping of breathing in the lungs, electric shock, and hypothermia from exposure to cold conditions. Loss of blood, and overuse of drugs can also cause it.

Cardiac arrest causes a person to collapse on the spot all of a sudden, with the loss of consciousness and a loss of pulse and with no breathing ability to be heard. It is important to know that a person breathig could not have suffered from a heart attack. The only way to be certain of knowing if a person has suffered from a cardiac arrest is by an ECG, which measures the electrical activity of the heart. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation should be performed as soon as possible on the person after the incident occurs to prevent brain damage.

Once diagnosis has been made, the ECG can show which one of the two types of cardiac arrest, ventricular fibrillation or asystole, that the patient has suffered. The first, ventricular fibrillation, is the uncoordinate contraction of the heart muscle fibers that can be corrected by shocking of the heart. Asystole is the complete lack of any cardiac fiber activity which is harder to reverse, sometimes it may respond to injections of adrenaline into the blood or in the heart in extreme cases. In all cases of cardiac arrest, the blood will become acidic due to the chemical composition of the blood being disturbed and thus, sodium bicarbonate is given to correct this.