14 DAY TRIAL // A new study of over 12,000 men and women who suffered from cardiac arrest, concluded that the chances of surviving such an incident are higher if they occur in public places, like venues, sports arenas, airports or shopping malls.
The authors say that almost four out of five cardiac arrests are caused by a survivable kind of heart rhythm disruption, and big places are more likely to be equipped with an automated external defibrillator (AED).
Also, you have more chances of being around people who know how to use this device, start CPR and call 911.
Dr. Laurie Morrison, an emergency medicine physician at St. Michael's Hospital and senior author on the research study said that “you’re more likely to be noticed if you have a cardiac arrest in a public place.
“There are lots of people around and the venue is more likely to have an AED than you are at tome.
“At least one person will likely know the right thing to do, which is call 911, start CPR and send someone to run and get the AED.”
The results if this research showed that 79% of the study participants had a type of disrupted heart rhythm that could be corrected by an electrical shock from an AED device, that a bystander had placed on them in public.
Thirty-four percent of the people who were actually shocked survived, and recovered well enough to be discharged from the hospital.
These kind of shockable rhythm disturbances are called ventricular tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation, or VT/VF, and their frequency in people staying at home was of only 36%.
In these cases, if a relative or a bystander witnessed the arrest and used an AED, only 11.6% survived to leave the hospital.
The rapid arrival of trained emergency personnel and a trip to the hospital also helped greatly, said Dr. Myron "Mike" Weisfeldt, cardiologist, physician in chief at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, director of the Department of Medicine at Hopkins' School of Medicine and lead author of the study.
He added that people who are at risk of sudden cardiac death and who have an AED at home, can also benefit.
“But the survival rate is really not that much different than with a bystander practicing CPR without an AED and quickly calling 911,” he said.
Having AEDs in public places can save many lives, said Dr. Morrison, adding that she was shocked that defibrillators are not mandatory in all public places and buildings in Canada, as they are in most US states.
“Every public building must have fire extinguishers and it should be the same for AEDs,” she added.
Dr. Weisfeldt gave a plausible explanation of these differences in survival rates among those who stay at home and those who find themselves in public places.
He said that people at home are usually older and more likely to have an underlying chronic disease than those who are active and go out.
This study evaluated 12,930 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests that occurred in 10 Canadian and US cities, from 2005 to 2007, and out of which 2,042 cardiac arrests occurred in public places and 9,564 in the home.
It's no wonder it is believed to be the largest and most comprehensive VT/VF analysis ever done in these two countries.
The results are reported in the January 26 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.