Each and every year, more than two million people throughout the world die suddenly from a cardiac arrest. A large number of the incidents occur within sports centres or other sports facilities due to people over exerting themselves. The main thing that determines the survival rate of someone who has a cardiac arrest is the amount of time it takes for them to receive a shock from an Automated External Defibrillator (AED). These have been purposely designed for use outside of a hospital setting, such as a sports centre or other public place. In fact, a research study that was completed recently shows that having an AED in a sports centre dramatically increases survival rates.
It is recommended by the American Heart Association (AHA) that there should be a defibrillator response within the space of three minutes for in hospital events and five minutes for the same events out in the public. As it stands the response time from the very start of a cardiac arrest through to the very first shock from an AED varies massively, hence why the chance of surviving one outside of a hospital setting is just fiver percent.
With each and every minute that passes between the onset of a cardiac arrest and being shocked with an AED, the chances of surviving it go down by between seven and ten percent. This goes to show just how important it is to have AEDs in sports centres and other public settings.
How To Use An AED
Before even reaching for an AED, you must first perform a primary survey of the patient, checking to see if their airway is blocked and how their vital signs are performing. If they are not breathing and in no way responsive, you should ask someone to call for the emergency services whilst you start administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). At the same time you should also ask someone to go and get an AED if there is one to hand.
Upon receiving the AED, ask them to switch it on and remove the pads whilst you are still administering the CPR. Expose the patient’s bare chest, wipe away any sweat that there may be on it and follow the audio prompts that are given by the AED.
The first of these will be to remove the backing from the pads and then put them on their chest, with one on the right side of their abdomen, just below their collar bone, and the other other on the left below their armpit. This allows it to fully analyse the heart beat and rhythm of the patient and thus administer the correct type and level of shock in order to get their heart working properly again so that the patient survives the event.
Although an AED will provide you with the exact instruction on how to use it, there are CPR AED certification online courses available that will teach you how to correctly use one in more depth than the instructions that are given.
