DO YOU KNOW THAT ASTOUNDING 50%; YES YOU HAVE GOT ME RIGHT, 50% of people dying of heart disease, never make it to the hospital even in Mauritius. They just collapse suddenly owing to sudden cardiac arrest often leading to instantaneous death. Sudden cardiac arrest can even occur in young, apparently healthy individual.
After knowing these facts, I am sure you would like to understand what is sudden cardiac arrest, why it remains a dreaded killer and how we can prevent it.
Sudden Cardiac Arrest is the abrupt loss of heart function, breathing and consciousness. The condition usually results from an electrical disturbance in your heart that disrupts its pumping action, stopping blood flow to your body leading to immediate death.
Sudden cardiac arrest is NOT a heart attack, when blood flow to a part of the heart is blocked. However, a heart attack can sometimes trigger an electrical disturbance that leads to sudden cardiac arrest. What makes sudden cardiac arrest much more dangerous than heart attack is that it usually comes without any warning whereas heart attack usually presents with well-known symptoms like chest pain, difficulty breathing etc which give some time to the patient/relatives to call the ambulance service.
The slim chance of survival with sudden cardiac arrest is an electric shock by defibrillator and rapid chest compressions till emergency medical aid arrives. But defibrillators are usually not available in most of the public places and can almost never be made universally available. The next question that arises is that can we do something to prevent sudden cardiac arrest?
The answer lies in the adage that forewarned is forearmed. In other words, if our risk of sudden cardiac death can be predicted reasonablthen appropriate measures can be taken prevent and even abort sudden cardiac death.
The good news is that your cardiologist can predict your likelihood of sudden cardiac arrest depending on your age, medical history, family history combined with simple tests like rest and exercise electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, CT scan for the arteries of the heart, and MRI scan for the heart. Based on these results, he/she can advise you appropriate lifestyle modification, medications or even implant devices like defibrillator inside your heart which gives an electric shock as soon as the electric storm occurs in the heart, thereby saving life.
Therefore, it is important that you visit your cardiologist especially if you have a family history of someone dying suddenly and/or you have risk factors for heart disease like diabetes, high blood pressure, smoking , high cholesterol, obesity, sleep disturbance, high levels of stress and anxiety and/or if you already had a heart attack in the past. We owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to live longer and not depart in such sudden, untimely manner.
To book a consultation go to https://www.calendulahealthcare.com/book-online
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