Sudden Death Isn't Always So Sudden

Sudden cardiac arrest is a common and deadly event. Twenty percent of all deaths in the United States each year are due to a sudden cardiac arrest; barely 5% of people who have one survive. The perception of a sudden cardiac arrest is that it comes out of the blue, but a new study suggests that despite its name, it often has warning signs, reports the December 2006 issue of the Harvard Heart Letter.

Studying cardiac arrest isn’t easy since it is generally fatal, and you can’t ask the victims how they felt before the attack. Interviewing witnesses can help, but that is often done much later. Researchers in Germany tried to fill in the blanks by asking doctors to interview witnesses on the spot. The doctors gathered information on 406 cases and found that warning signs were surprisingly common.

Chest pain, shortness of breath, nausea or vomiting, and dizziness were the most common heralds of an impending cardiac arrest. Some people began to experience these hours before the arrest. In 90% of the cases, symptoms lasted for at least five minutes. Only 25% of the victims had truly out-of-the-blue arrests that weren’t preceded by symptoms.

The Harvard Heart Letter recommends that you call 911 if you notice one or more of the signs below in yourself or someone else:

• uncomfortable pressure, fullness, tightness, or pain in the chest
• pain, numbness, or other uncomfortable sensations in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw, or stomach
• shortness of breath
• sudden nausea or vomiting
• lightheadedness
• unusual fatigue
• heat and flushing or cold sweat
• sudden heaviness, weakness, or aching in one or both arms.

Also in this issue:
• New, implantable artificial heart
• Salt substitutes
• Hand-held device lets you squeeze your way to lower blood pressure
• A doctor answers: Do collapsed stents need fixing?

Source: Harvard Heart Letter