How to prevent sudden cardiac death without warning？

In recent years, marathon fashion has swept across the country, and marathon events have mushroomed everywhere. However, behind such a "high fever" marathon, a series of sudden cardiac deaths cast a lingering shadow over this healthy event. What is sudden cardiac death? How to give first aid to sudden cardiac death? Today, we are going to popularize the general knowledge of sudden cardiac death and the first aid method of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

What is sudden cardiac death?

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines "sudden death" as a person who is usually healthy or seemingly healthy and dies of natural diseases in a short time. There are many reasons for sudden death, including acute myocardial infarction, malignant arrhythmia, pulmonary embolism, cerebrovascular disease, allergy, poisoning and so on. Among them, sudden cardiac death is the most common. According to the statistics released by the 15th World Arrhythmia Congress on September 17th, 2015, there are about 20 million arrhythmia patients in China, and about 540,000 people suffer from sudden cardiac death every year.

According to Xinhuanet, sudden cardiac death refers to the sudden and unexpected death of people who did not have or suffered from heart disease. Medically speaking, sudden death within one hour due to one’s own reasons without any external force such as car accident or violent injury is called sudden cardiac death. Most of the causes of sudden death are heart diseases. Due to the accelerated pace of modern life, some people forget to eat and sleep and work excessively, which will lead to the disorder of the immune system and electrolyte in the long run, which will increase the probability of sudden cardiac death. More than 80% of sudden cardiac death is caused by tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation or cardiac arrest.

Sudden death often occurs without warning.

According to the epidemiological survey of sudden cardiac death in China, 41.84 out of every 100,000 people died of sudden cardiac death. According to this calculation, nearly 600,000 people die suddenly every year in China, with 1,500 people every day, and the success rate of rescue outside the hospital is less than 1%. In some developed cities, the incidence of sudden cardiac death is comparable to that of cancer. Tong Jiabin, deputy director of the Department of Cardiology, Beijing Hospital, said at the exchange meeting on "Chronic Diseases and Therapy" held in 2013 that sudden cardiac death was caused by sudden heart problems, which often happened without any warning and could happen at any time and any place. Because the rescue time is short (6-9 minutes), 99% patients will eventually lose the chance of rescue. Even if some people are rescued, they may have brain damage due to missing the "golden time" of rescue, and eventually become vegetative. Patients with coronary heart disease, severe ventricular arrhythmia and people with low cardiac ejection fraction should be especially careful of sudden death.

(Source: Guangzhou Daily)

Grasp gold for 4 minutes

Liu Cunyi, vice president of Beijing 999 Emergency Center, said in an interview with Beijing Morning Post that four minutes after sudden death is the best time for rescue, which is also known as the "golden four minutes" for rescue. During this time, if effective hands-on cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is given to the patient, the patient’s life is very likely to be saved. According to the 2010 international CPR guidelines, the survival rate of those who are successfully rescued within 4 minutes can reach 32%. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) has been recognized as the first life-saving technique in the world.

Liu Cunyi pointed out that the current average emergency response time in China is difficult to reach 4 minutes. Taking Beijing as an example, in the absence of traffic jams, the average emergency response time is about 16 to 17 minutes at the earliest. In this case, if you master some first aid skills such as CPR, you can seize the best rescue opportunity and save the patient’s life before the arrival of professional medical staff.

How to scientifically give first aid when sudden cardiac death occurs? Liu Cunyi said that in the first minute after the patient fell to the ground, cardiopulmonary resuscitation is not the most important thing, but defibrillation. The first thing that may happen to patients with sudden death is ventricular fibrillation. At this time, if defibrillation can be effective, there is no need to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation. If you miss this for 1 minute, the patient may stop beating. For defibrillation, the simplest and most effective method is to use a defibrillator. Defibrillator is a portable medical device, which can diagnose specific arrhythmia and give electric shock defibrillation. It is a medical device used to rescue patients with sudden cardiac death. Li Guoqiang, chief physician of the Department of Cardiology, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, said in an interview with Guangzhou Daily that the use of the self-help defibrillator is very simple, and non-medical personnel can use it after 20 minutes of training. (Li Lu)