October is Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month
October 13, 2008 7:56 AM CT
October is Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month, and StopAfib.org is helping to raise awareness of Sudden Cardiac Arrest.
According to the Heart Rhythm Society, a founding member of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) Coalition,
“Sudden cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops working and no blood can be pumped to the rest of the body. In essence, the heart’s electrical system malfunctions. It occurs abruptly and without warning, and two-thirds of SCA deaths occur without any prior indications of heart disease. Ninety-five percent of those who experience SCA die because they do not receive life-saving defibrillation within four to six minutes, before brain and permanent death start to occur.”
Twenty-nine organizations are members of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Coalition, which is dedicated to preventing Sudden Cardiac Arrest deaths.
For more information, see the following sites:
For those with atrial fibrillation, it’s important to note that sudden cardiac arrest death results from ventricular fibrillation, not atrial fibrillation.