Online CPR Certification Blog

Treating Ebola patients in various developed countries has posed some very serious ethical challenges for the clinicians. This is more so when these health care experts are required to offer urgent life- sustaining care in efforts of increasing the likelihood of the patient surviving.

Family member performed CPR

A couple of years back, I took care of a patient who had a rather unique problem of the heart. When her lovely pet dog was caught in a raccoon metal strap, she ran to assist the dog and due to the panic the dog was in, it ended up biting her.

When someone experiences a heart attack, various symptoms can be observed which among others include:

1. Feeling of uncomfortable pressure, squeezing pain or fullness particularly at the middle part of the chest.
2. Great pain or discomfort that spreads down the shoulders from the chest and could also extend to the arms, jaw, teeth and neck as well as in the upper abdomen.

Cardiac arrest patient compared to the basic life support

According to a research there is an advanced life support that is typically given by paramedics to cardiac arrest patients that may cost lives more than just saving them. The right treatment may just be CPR and that is enough from paramedics or from medical technicians, after which the patient must be brought to the hospital right away. Survival is not the basic life support more than the advanced life support which is now being questioned in a pre-hospital care that aims to improve the result of a cardiac arrest patient compared to the basic life support according to the study.

There is a new sensitive test that Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered. According to them, patients who are diabetic might have 6 times the risk of having a heart failure even if they do not suffer from a cholesterol problem and even if they appeared to be healthy. The results of this newest study have suggested that patients with diabetes and those with pre-diabetes might be suffering from it without being detected, but they have the possibility to have heart muscle damage according to the researchers.

There has been a sharp boost with the quantity of Americans looking for an immediate care for heart rhythm disorder or better known as atrial fibrillation according to a fresh study. Atrial fibrillation is one of the most common types of irregular heartbeat and it can lead to blood clot, heart failure, heart associated problems and stroke according to experts.

Doctors have just discovered a bacterial pneumonia that can raise the risk of heart problems, but there is a new research that points out the reason. The bacteria may essentially invade & kill the heart cells, thus elevating the probabilities of heart failure, abnormal heart rhythms & heart attacks too in people according to the report.

According to health news just in November 19, women with congenital heart ailments are less prone to risk for heart related complications every time they give birth. This was according to a new study conducted just recently. The researchers have analyzed the data coming from the 2.7M women who gave birth in California, but this data doesn’t include the 3,200 people who had congenital heart disease & the 248 of which with complex congenital heart ailment. This means that the condition was more progressive and they have had a heart surgery when they were still kids.

Injecting beads of gel inside the wall of a still beating heart may provide certain improvement in the condition of the patient with severe cases of heart failure; this is bestowing to a new study conducted. Patients with heart problems who got gel implant had improved blood oxygen levels & they were able to gait 100s of feet beyond during a 6 min gait examination, according to sr. researcher Dr. Mann, who is a chief of the cardiovascular division of the Washington University School of Medicine and he is also a cardiologist. The study has just shows that the cure with the gel may be a new and possible therapy for the patients with advanced heart failure according to him.

A lot of people with stable heart condition may go through a very costly artery opening process if medicine will not work well for them; this is according to the newest study conducted recently. This process involves putting a little mesh stent, tube inside a clogged artery. Do you know that 75 percent of the said operations are not needed anymore according to a researcher who also happened to be a professor at the Stony Brook University Medical Center situated in New York?

Is it about money?

Money is just the one moving the force according to Brown. Everyone pays for stents, the hospital gets paid for it, the doctor and the stenting company too receives payment, he added. It is how the free for service environment has taken charge over the decision in making this branch of cardiology. Stenting will cost you around 9,000usd compared with a lifetime medication according to Brown. Even if this procedure is known as percutaneous coronary intervention, it lessens the cases of death & probable cases of heart attacks for someone who has had a heart attack. It’s affectivity in patients with stable heart disease hasn’t been determined.

According to stenting study conducted

There was a study published in February 27, there were 8 trials conducted involving around 7,000 patients. They were designated to a medical therapy or stenting plus medication. The trials started out in between year 1997 and 2005.   This kind of study is known as meta-analysis. The researchers look for patterns that might not have been the prime intent of the trials. At the follow up conducted for 4 years, there is no important alteration seen in the quality of life of the patients involved in the study.

More so, 649 patients died, while 322 got stents & 327 were given medicine alone, this is the data that the study discovered. Nonfatal heart attacks were experienced by 323 people with stents and 291 took medicines only. Those with stents, 774 new processes to open clogged heart arteries were discovered, while those under a medical therapy, 1049 of them also needed to go through the procedure for open blocked arteries. With the 4,000 people with chest pain or better known as angina was discovered, 29 % of those with stents had recurrent chest pain vs. the 33% of the people on medical therapy alone according to Brown.

Analysis on stents vs. medication

There is no definite data recorded yet that stenting the patient will be able to provide him/her with a stable heart disease, thus lessens the risk of having a heart attack and fatality later on in life. This is not to let people refuse the need to go through stenting, but only around 1/3 of the patients treated with medication will consider stenting over medication. People must not be blinded to agree in going through the process unless told by the doctor that they can reap benefits from it or it can boost their life quality.