The 5 early warning signs of cardiac arrest revealed – as 1 in 10 patients call 999 the day before, study finds
FIVE early warning signs of a cardiac arrest have been revealed.
A study noted a number of symptoms which could mean a patient is at risk of the potentially fatal condition.
Researchers looked at Danish callers who had suffered a cardiac arrest out of hospital.
The patients had been listed on the Danish Cardiac Arrest Registry between 2016 and 2018.
One in ten had called emergency services up to 24 hours before having an arrest.
The most commonly reported symptoms of early cardiac arrests were breathing problems, confusion, unconsciousness, chest pain and paleness.
The average age of patients with was 74 years old and 59.9 per cent were men.
"Breathing problems more frequently preceded cardiac arrest than chest pain,” said study author Mr. Filip Gnesin, a research scholar at North Zealand Hospital, Hillerød, Denmark.
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“Since difficulty breathing is also a sign of other health conditions, we hope our findings will stimulate further research to help emergency medical dispatchers distinguish between symptoms of a pre-arrest condition versus other medical issues.”
Mr. Gnesin said: “More than 10 per cent of patients experiencing an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest had a phone call to the emergency medical services up to 24 hours before their arrest either made by themselves or a bystander.
"Breathing difficulty was the most common complaint and much more common than chest pain.
"Despite this, compared to chest pain, patients with breathing issues were less likely to receive emergency medical help and more likely to die within 30 days after the arrest.
"These findings indicate that breathing problems are an underrated warning sign of cardiac arrest.”
He added: “Although our study shows that some patients with cardiac arrest present characteristic pre-arrest symptoms, these symptoms are not unique to this patient population.
"We hope that creating awareness of breathing problems as a common early symptom of cardiac arrest will contribute, together with more research, to identifying more characteristics specific to cardiac arrest so that it can be predicted and possibly prevented in the future.”
KNOW THE SIGNS
A cardiac arrest, also known as cardiopulmonary arrest, happens when your heart suddenly stops pumping blood around your body.
Someone who has had a cardiac arrest will collapse unconscious.
Their breathing will be irregular and may stop, and they will be unresponsive.
When a cardiac arrest happens there is no time to lose, it is a life-threatening emergency, and calling an ambulance is vital.
While waiting for an ambulance performing CPR can help keep a person alive.
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To perform CPR:
- Perform chest compression - pumping the heart from outside the body to keep blood flowing until the ambulance arrives
- Rescue breathing - mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to inflate the lungs