Cardiac arrests are one of the most common causes of death in our country. It is not only necessary to detect the problem as soon as possible, but also to act in less than 5 minutes after the collapse, something extremely complicated if defibrillators are limited to hospitals. Therefore, today we are going to talk about the importance of having these devices in public spaces and homes.

The consequences of cardiac arrests

Cardiac arrests are one of the most important problems for public health. In fact, in Spain there are almost 25,000 cases each year, that is to say, that on average we find a stop every 20 minutes, exceeding four deaths in traffic accidents.

80% of cardiac arrests are the consequence of coronary diseases and approximately 20% begin with sudden death, with acute myocardial infarction being the most frequent cause of all. This disease is suffered by almost 70,000 Spaniards each year and a third die before being able to reach the hospital.

cardiac arrest
Defibrillation helps save lives

Experts have been observing this trend in Intensive Care Units for decades and warn that early defibrillation is essential to save lives. To give you an idea, heart rate recovery is 90% when performed one minute after the heart attack.

However, each minute of delay will limit its effectiveness by almost 10%, so after 10 minutes the chances of survival are slim.

Strategies for recovering from an outage include 4 essential stages, known as the “chain of survival”. The first is early detection of the problem, followed by early cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillation.

The last step is to put the patient on advanced life support minutes after having suffered the crisis.

As you can see, defibrillation is a fundamental element to save lives and there are a number of international organizations that are fighting hard for its implementation, such as the European Resuscitation Council, the European Society of Cardiology or the American Heart Association.

The Defibrillator indicates at all times how you should act. AED plus CPR techniques save lives.
Defibrillators in public spaces and homes

We already know that it is necessary to act as soon as possible, since every minute we let go greatly reduces the chances of survival. That is why defibrillators have to have a wide presence in public places and homes and not focus only on hospitals.
access programs

The access programs are designed to shorten this response time and aim to ensure that no more than 5 minutes elapse between the call to 112 and the defibrillation.
To do this, they rely on other emergency services, even if they are not health services, and in the community itself.
In this sense, the strategies can be summarized in three fundamental pillars:

Early defibrillation by non-health emergency services.
Defibrillation in public places.
Defibrillation at home.

Cardio-insured Community of Neighbors
Early defibrillation by non-medical emergency services

In many European and North American cities, health services are not the only ones in charge of early defibrillation. In this sense, the fire brigades and police have been extremely effective in this task, since as a general rule they are the first to arrive at the place where the cardiac arrest occurs.
Defibrillation in public places

This program is essential to allow defibrillation to take place within an estimated five minutes of collapsing. Public places are divided into two main types: those that cannot be accessed by resuscitation teams, such as a commercial airplane in mid-flight, and places where there is a great risk of cardiac arrest.

In this second type we can highlight the spaces where a large number of people accumulate, such as train stations, shopping centers or stadiums, especially if sports activities are carried out by risk groups, such as heart patients or the elderly. advanced.

The effectiveness of the implementation of these early defibrillation systems in public spaces has been positively assessed by a study entitled: "Public Access Defibrillation Trial", carried out by organizations such as the Lung and Blood Institute and the American Heart Association. In it, the conclusion is reached that, although the law does not sometimes force them to be installed, defibrillators in these areas save lives.
Defibrillation at home

In the United States, the presence of defibrillators is common in high-risk homes.
This has been possible thanks to an initiative carried out by the Food and Drug Administration and only a doctor's prescription is needed.
This is an essential measure to act as soon as possible in those patients who may suffer a cardiac arrest or myocardial infarction at any time.