Automated External Defibrillator
Three Houston-area teenagers died last month during football practices, and another local teenage athlete died this week while running track.
Next week, the University Interscholastic League will consider requiring each high school in Texas to have an AED on site.
An automated external defibrillator (AED) is a portable electronic device that diagnoses and treats cardiac arrest by re-establishing an effective heart rhythm. An AED is called external because the operator applies the electrode pads to the bare chest of the victim, unlike internal defibrillators, which have electrodes surgically implanted inside the body of a patient (like the one sported by Vice President Dick Cheney).
Once the pads are attached to the patient by a trained bystander, the AED diagnoses the heart rhythm and determines if a shock is needed to treat fibrillation. If the device determines that a shock is necessary, it will charge in preparation to deliver the shock. When charged, the device instructs the user to ensure no one is touching the victim and then to press a button to deliver the shock. After the shock is delivered, the device again monitors the heart rhythm of the victim to determine if another shock is necessary.
While we can't say that such a device would have saved the lives of the young athletes who recently died, these devices clearly have been shown to increase the chance of survival after witnessed cardiac arrests.
The American Red Cross claims that more than 200,000 Americans die of sudden cardiac arrest every year, and that up to 50,000 of these deaths could be prevented by initiating the Cardiac Chain of Survival and having an automated external defibrillator (AED) available for immediate use at the time of the emergency.
Labels: medical
posted by scalpel at 9:04 AM
3 Comments:
It's not required in our state yet. But, I saw one right outside the bathrooms at the football game Friday night.
I had a ten year old patient last week who was a 160 pound (!) football player. He had complained of chest pain during the practice, and had a syncopal episode while running laps soon thereafter. EMS was not called, and the parents brought him in for evaluation by private auto a couple of hours later. His ECG and examination were normal, but I admitted him to the hospital for observation and further workup.
I recently published an article on drug rehab – here is a quote from it, in case you are interested:
Statistics give us more and more pieces of information that are bound to worry us, to make us react and change something if we can. More and more people and in earlier and earlier stages of their life die of a heart disease. Statistics, only in the US, are extremely alarming:
- Every 30 seconds someone dies because of a heart disease;
- More than 2.500 Americans die daily because of heart diseases;
- Every 20 seconds there is a person dying from a heart attack;
- Each year 6 million people are hospitalized because of a heart disease;
- The number 1 killer is a heart disease.
Although AEDs are not a universal panacea for all heart diseases, nothing else can compete to its major feature, that of actually re-starting the heart after it has been stopped by a sudden cardiac arrest. Under these circumstances is it necessary to ask you why anyone in this world, any family, in any home would hope for having such a device in their first aid locker?
If you feel this help, please drop by my website for additional information, such as Public Access Defibrillatio PAD or additional resources on AED manufacturers such as Philips defibrillators, Zoll AEDs or Cardiac Science AEDs.
Regards,
Michael
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