Posts Tagged ‘Defibrillators’

The Importance of Defibrillators in Public Places

Thursday, May 12th, 2011

A defibrillator is a valuable device to have around when there’s an emergency situation, such as a person’s having cardiac arrest, or when their heart stops and it is not receiving enough oxygen, which in many cases have proved to be fatal.

A defibrillator is a device that is designed to “jumpstart” a person’s heart when it has suddenly stopped functioning properly. Another name for a defibrillator is an AED, which stands for Automated External Defibrillator. At one time, because most people didn’t have enough knowledge on how to come to the aid of a person’s suffering from cardiac arrest, defibrillators weren’t as commonplace as they are becoming today, but because of the rise of heart-related fatalities in recent decades, the presence of defibrillators in public places are becoming increasingly common.

The importance of having defibrillators in public places is just as important as having fire alarms in public places. Just imagine a school or an office building having no fire alarms. Then how are people going to know whether or not to evacuate a potential danger situation? That’s the purpose of having defibrillators.

Because we live in an unpredictable world in which anything can happen at any given moment, it’s always good to be prepared. As the old adage goes, ‘to be forewarned is to be forearmed’. The same applies in having a defibrillator in a public place.

Happily, the presence of defibrillators in public places is now rapidly beginning to catch on. In many places, wherever’s there’s a fire alarm, there’s a defibrillator right next to it. Also like a fire alarm, it has written instruction on how to properly use a defibrillator in the event of an emergency.

Yes, defibrillators are finally becoming part of the social consciousness of society today. This is not just true in America, but throughout the world as a whole. People get sick everywhere, so they want to have access to the same safety facilities as Americans do.

Sometimes-unfortunately-this may affect us in a personal way. One day, one of our loved ones or we may appreciate the value of having a defibrillator by our side. This is something that has been hit close to home for some.

So, there’s no reason to be surprised if we should see such a device in our school, office building, or even our local restaurant. Unfortunate situations happen everywhere, and it’s better to have such defibrillators right there on the premises than to have to wait for an ambulance, which can take who knows how long, and when they arrive, it may be too late.

Yes, defibrillators have finally become a common staple of many institutions, it is being taken seriously by many people, who perhaps formerly did not appreciate its value-until something happened to them or someone that they love-or loved.

Never underestimate the importance of having a defibrillator around. It can truly be a lifesaver, just as it already has to numerous people, who can testify as to its effectiveness. By all means, always appreciate the importance of having defibrillators in public places.

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User-Friendly AEDs Require Little Training

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

Portable defibrillators are very important devices as they can help save lives even in places where medical help is not at hand. They work as emergency measures before the patient suffering receives the right kind of treatment after been saved from sudden death that comes as a result of cardiac arrest. The worst thing about cardiac arrests is that a person could be feeling absolutely fine and the next minutes he or she is gasping for breath hanging onto dear life.

The devices are quite effective and useful as they are very easy to operate and are available in public places nowadays offering the essential services of controlling the heart rate back to normal. Individuals need only know how to start and use the gadgets as they are able to perform the other functions without help.

Research has shown that survival rates for patients suffering from cardiac arrests are higher while in public places compared to situations where they were at home or other places. Since cardiac arrests need immediate attention as life could easily be lost within the first five minutes of the attacks, the portable defibrillators come in handy. These important health devices are nowadays well distributed and available in public places.

The number of cardiac arrests occurring in public places has slowly risen as more people are prone to the attacks. Research has shown that people as young as 18 years of age are now suffering from cardiac arrests as a result of the changing lifestyles. This has come as call and now most public places have the important devices at hand in case the situation calls. Heart diseases, obesity and inactivity are some aspects that have contributed to the increased numbers of cardiac arrests.

Early defibrillation is the key to managing cardiac arrests thereby preventing lives which is why the portable defibrillators were developed. Since they can be used even by people who do not have any medical background, they are very useful devices of saving lives. The survival rates are high in public places since it is highly unlikely that the large crowds in such places would lack a person who knows how to use the devices.

As long as an individual knows how to start and place the device onto the person suffering, it is enough to save the life at hand. The fact is that the device only needs to be started and placed well for it to be in a position to determine whether the person needs the electric shocks and in what wattage the shocks are needed to take care of the problem at hand.

Since more people are taking lesson in understanding and using the defibrillators, there are a number of people in the public crowds that know how to use them when needed compared to the patient being at home or in a place where nobody knows the proper use of the device or there is no device at all. There is therefore a great need to teach people on how to use defibrillators.

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Defibrillators in School Gyms

Thursday, February 24th, 2011


In an effort to make school gyms safer, many schools are now making sure their gyms have defibrillator located on the premises. A defibrillator, or AED, can be the difference between life and death when a medical emergency occurs in the gym. There are cases of students collapsing during an athletic event or a gym class and not receiving the medical help they needed fast enough. These students lost their lives because response time was critical to their situation. By the time help arrived with the proper medical equipment, it was too late to save them. By making sure that school gyms have defibrillators on their premises, tragedies like this can be avoided.

Recently there have been students that have fallen ill at school gyms and have been helped with a defibrillator. Chris Winston is one such student. He was stricken ill on the same Parkview High School gym floor where Anthony Hobbs died. There was one big difference this time. This time the school had a defibrillator present that was able to be used to save Winston’s life. It was due to Anthony Hobbs’ death on January 2, 2008 that lawmakers acted to get defibrillators into schools. They saw the death of Hobbs as preventable and knew that if a school was prepared they could avoid a tragedy like that from unfolding again. They were right and the family of Chris Winston is thankful that they acted to get the proper medical equipment in the schools. Schools in the Little Rock School District received defibrillators in January 2010 as part of the Anthony Hobbs project created by lawmakers.

Many are hoping that this line of thinking spreads to other school districts. They don’t want defibrillators coming to their school district after a tragedy happens; they want them there now to prevent one. The problem with getting them into schools seems to be the cost. A new defibrillator can cost around $2,000 and many schools are cash strapped as is. Schools throughout the nation are having to cut back on the most basic of services so getting a defibrillator can be prove to be tough. There is no doubt that $2,000 is more than worth it when it comes to saving a life, but schools are just having a hard time coming up with the money.

In some cases schools may have the money for a defibrillator but the issue hasn’t come up yet. That’s why it is important for people to get the message out that these AED devices should be in every school gym nationwide to prevent the loss of life. School officials need to know that everybody is better off if their school is prepared to deal with an emergency medical situation where defibrillator can save a life.

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The History of Defibrillators

Monday, October 11th, 2010

A Defibrillator sends electrical energy to the heart when it goes into cardiac arrest. This allows the body’s sinus rhythm to be returned to normal. Some defibrillators are implanted and some are internal.

In 1899 two physiologists from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, Batelli and Prevost discovered that dogs could be induced with ventricular fibrillation by small electrical shocks. They also discovered that larger shocks could reverse that condition. This was the first time a defibrillator was demonstrated.

In 1947 Case Western Reserve University professor of surgery, Claude Beck, used the defibrillator on a human for the first time ever. Beck believed that there must be a way to save the heart because the heart is too good to die. He stated that ventricular fibrillation occurs in healthy hearts often times.

The first time that Beck used the defibrillator to save a human life was on a fourteen year old boy with a chest defect. Internal paddles were used on the boy’s heart during surgery after it had been manually massaged for forty-five minutes.

When defibrillators were first made the alternate current was carried to the heart via “paddle” tape electrodes. These machines had to be transported by wheels because they were very large. This made them difficult to move.

The only way that defibrillators were used on the heart during the early fifties was by opening up the chest cavity. The paddles then had to be placed by the heart. This was all done by alternate current.

Later in the mid 1950’s in USSR, Dr. V. Eskin and A. Klimov built a device that could carry voltage to the heart externally by applying electrodes to the heart through the chest cave.

Bernard Lown began researching another way to carry the current to the heart by using dampened paddles and sending a direct current to the heart. Engineer Burouh Berkovits combined this with his “cardioverter” in 1959. This unit was known as the Loan Waveform and was used as a defibrillator until the late 1980’s.

Portable defibrillators were developed in the 1960’s and used by ambulances and rescue units to resuscitate someone experiencing cardiac arrest before they arrive at the hospital. They were only used by professionals for many years. In later years models were developed that anyone can use without training or experience.

In 1969 a team of doctors at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore Maryland began working on a defibrillator that could be implanted and used internally. It took eleven years to come up with one that would work. By 1980 the first internal device was implanted in a patient by Dr. Levi Watkins Jr at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Defibrillators have come a long way over the years. In the beginning they were huge units, then they became portable and some were made where anyone can use them. Currently they can also be implanted into a human body and send volts to the heart when it needs to be charged. They have saved many lives since they were invented.

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Are Defibrillators Necessary for High Schools?

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
defibrillators save the lives of teens every year

Saved by a Defibrillator

What is a defibrillator?

Most of us have seen a television show or two where someone, completely untrained, slaps a few sticky pads on a lifeless body, powers up a machine and shocks that person right back to life. What you have witnessed isn’t a trick of the television, it is an actual machine called an Automated External Defibrillator or AED for short. This small piece of equipment is designed to allow laymen to provide lifesaving treatment to those suffering from various types of heart arrhythmia and heart attacks. It is slowly becoming commonplace in many businesses, schools and parks across the country. Still, many of us have never even seen one, let alone had the misfortune to need one.

This was pretty much the state of affairs at my high school last year. I attend a small, private school that is known for its inexpensive tuition rates. As a result, the administration is always struggling to provide the students with everything we need to get a first rate education. The ‘extras’ are often forgotten. Our gym teacher, who also doubles as the schools health adviser, had always included a week long CPR course for every gym class. Last year, she approached the school board about updating some of our equipment and requested funds for an AED. A long battle ensued, with many parents arguing that the money would be better spent on repaving the parking lot or purchasing new uniforms for the basketball team, after all, how many teenagers had heart attacks at school?

AED training

AED training can save lives

“I have a life because my coach used an AED”

The coach finally won and the unit was delivered in time for the start of the school year. There is sat, collecting dust, in her office, until the day it saved my life.

I had a heart attack during gym class, the very thing that all those parents said would never happen did. I died on the floor of my school gym and while several students ran to the office for help and two others rushed for their cell phones, my gym teacher raced to her office, grabbed the defibrillator and hooked me up. The machine did exactly what it is designed to do; it analyzed my condition, delivered the appropriate electrical current to me and got my heart beating again. The paramedics that arrived five minutes later told my parents that it had saved my life. We later discovered I suffered from a congenital heart defect.

Defibrillators in Schools

My point is this, while the likelihood of having to use an AED in a high school is slim, there are cases like mine where one simple machine can be the difference between life and death. If you are ever put in a position to offer an opinion about whether an Automated External Defibrillator should be purchased for your school, church or park, please remember my story. It can save a life! I will be forever grateful to the administration of my school for taking the time to understand how important a defibrillator is and for spending the money to purchase one.

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Man on Metra Train Dies of Cardiac Arrest, A Defibrillator Might Have Saved His Life

Monday, October 12th, 2009

Chicago Metra Train

Chicago Residents are now debating whether the availablity of a defibrillator on the Chicago Metra Train might have saved a man that died from cardiac arrest on October 9th, 2009.

Two nurses rushed to assist Metra crew members who tried to help the 63-year-old Barrington Hills man with heart attack symptoms. They attempted CPR. Emergency responders who met the train at the Palatine station also tried to save the man, but died.

The tragic story quickly raised questions among some regular passengers and medical authorities, who questioned why the Metra trains, unlike passenger airplanes, don’t have defibrillators on board. It also came to light that neither the CTA buses and trains have them available.

Defibrillators are becoming more common on mass transit systems, not just in the United States but all over the world. Why a major transportation system like the Metra has thus far failed to provide AED remains a mystery.

What do you think?

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Medtronic Recalling Some Physio-Control Lifepak CR Plus Defibrillators

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

The FDA announced that some Physio-Control Automated External Defibrillators from the Lifepak CR Plus line are being recalled due to possible inoperability in extremely humid conditions. This could be a serious problem for those that live in humid states or where the units have been deployed where humidity might be high. It would be best to contact Physio-Control to find out more information about your particular unit or if you need to have your unit replaced.

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Study Suggests CPR Given In Hospitals Is Not Effective

Monday, July 6th, 2009

According to a study that was published in the New England Journal last year, CPR received in the hospital was ineffective. Only about 18% of patients survived and were able to leave the hospital after receiving CPR. The study also found that about a third of patients did not recieve potential life-saving defibrillator shock treatment within the recommended timeframe of two minutes after suffering cardiac arrest. The recommended guidelines for CPR is 100 compressions per minute. Many variables could cause a deviation from these guidelines and lower your survival chances if you were to suffer a heart attack in the hospital. Amazingly, defibrillators are not as accessible as they could be in the hospital and medical staff has to resort to old fashioned CPR.

Defibrillators save lives, they have helped increase survival rates outside the hospital and should be more effectively used inside the hospital. The New England Journal study found that african americans had a 25% lower surivival rate after suffering a heart attack in the hospital than other races.

If you are at high risk for a heart attack, you should either have a defibrillator stashed in your trunk, house or office. You may also want to consider showing your friends and family how to administer the defibrillator treatment if necessary. That defibrillator purchase you made can very well end up saving your life one day. Don’t rely on hospitals and medical staff alone.

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Michael Jackson Defibrillator Rumors Denied by Doctor

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

michael jackson defibrillator rumors are falseRumors have been circulating that Michael Jackson had a AED in his rental home, but his personal doctor, Dr Conrad Murray denied all such rumors saying if there was on there it would have been used. The availablity of an Automated External Defibrillator could have saved Michael’s life and it’s hard to understand why anyone with money would not want to have one handy! Michael loved himself very much and it could very well have saved his life.

EMT Technicians at the scene previously described seeing some sort of defibrillator that was either not working or inoperable.

We suspect there will be a big rush for celebrities to buy themselves defibrillators in the coming months, afterall the relative low cost of one is well worth the cost, considering the alternative.

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