• See also Stroke

• See also Medical  

• See also Cost-Effectiveness

• See also Emergency Medical Services

• See also Heart Rate Variability  

• See also Site Map

• See also High Blood Pressure

Cool for 24 hours after Sudden Cardiac Arrest. added 02/20/02

Cool the brain AND supply oxygen before arriving at the hospital   
Might increase survival of sudden cardiac arrest from 5% to 30%  added 11/21/01

Heart failure from use of crack may be too severe to be saved by Skyaid. added 11/20/01

Implantable pump currently can add 250 days of life to a person with a weak heart but at a cost of over $4,000 per day.{Note: Skyaid expects to add a life-year for less than $10 - which is about 10,000X less costly} It is expected that both the life extension from implantable pump will be lengthened and cost will go down with use.   added 11/13/01

Heart Attack Symptoms from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, via Consumer Union  added 11/03/01

INTERNAL AED = ICD

FDA Approves Wearable Cardiac Defibrillator   added 12/19/01

Biotronik got FDA approval  Oct 2001 for their Home Monitoring Pacemaker which can periodically transmit data to doctor's office  AP article taken from Wall St. Journal    Biotronik web site has little information on this product   added 10/12/01

Biotronik pacemakers - a good description for 2 million ownersl  added 10/12/01

site which has links to Pacemakers and defibrillators added 10/12/01

ICD/AED could provide pre-pulses to greatly reduce the impact of the main pulse.  added 08/24/01

AED meta-review of 101 journal articles in JAMA, March 2001 added 07/08/01

U.S. VP Cheney will have an internal AED = ICD  
- news article and other references  added 07/01/01

Implantable defibrillators (ICD) could save 100,000 lives per year - but too expensive   added 1/22/01

Implantable Defibrillator for Congestive Heart Disease - WSJ article added 3/20/01

Cardiac Chaos- might enable making a gentle ICD?  added 07/07/01

SUDDEN CARDIAC DEATH RATE

from http://www2.survivalink.com/technical/arrest.html added 08/23/01

Sudden Cardiac Arrest death rate is big: 
greater than death by stroke, lung cancer, breast cancer, etc.  added 06/23/01

Reduce death from Coronary Heart Disease during next 30 years
with statins, angioplasty, defibrillation, and reduction in diabetes.  added 06/01/01

Heart Care in U.S., Britain, Canada, and Germany   from 1995 book added 3/10/01

SUDDEN CARDIAC RESPONSE TIME

Should not wait more than 15 minutes before calling emergency service.  
Fewer than 5% of heart attack victims are treated within the 'golden hour' added 4/27/01

Slow helicopter service does not help with sudden cardiac arrest. added 12/28/00

Little chance of surviving sudden cardiac arrest in Ireland if >5 miles from on-duty ambulance base, 
and virtually no chance if it is an on-call ambulance base.  added 12/29/00

Detailed estimates for Survival of Sudden Cardiac Arrest

SUDDEN CARDIAC BOOKS

Arrhythmias - 2nd edition, 2000, of 600 page book by John Kastor, M.D. This provides excellent insight into all of the different types of arrhythmias.  The book makes it clear that it will be impossible to make a Skyaid Watch with a fixed set of arrhythmia rules for everyone.  The Skyaid Watch will have to "train" itself to the wearer. added 08/25/01

Sudden Cardiac Arrest compared to Heart Attack in Healthy Heart for Dummies 8/17/00

Fighting Sudden Cardiac Death - a book 8/25/00

Two books with the same title: Sudden Cardiac Death  8/4/00
Golstein: Highest risk males have 1.3% chance of dying of Sudden Cardiac Arrest each year
                SIDS deaths vary widely - primarily with latitude
Dunbar: SIDS might be able to be predicted by Heart Rate Variability analysis
               Family members of heart patients rarely learn CPR

Healthy Heart for Dummies  
Our 2 page overview of this excellent book. Including women, statistics, risk factors, stroke  8/17/00

Challenging Sudden Death - 1 page overview of the neat book  7/20/00

CARDIAC RISK FACTORS

Chance of Sudden Cardiac Death and Genes
SCD rate increases by 2X if father had SCD, and by 9X if both parents had SCD.  added 06/01/01

Risk Factors for Sudden Death  two Dec 1999 papers  8/4/00
One paper focused on the factors for ages ranging from 20 to 59: 
Other paper concluded that SCA 7x higher if coronary patient was exhausted and could not express his emotions  

Risk factor: Anger: 
A study reported in NY Times May 9, 2000 that looked at almost 13,000 people 
found that those who were most prone to anger were about 2.5 times as likely  
to have heart attacks or sudden cardiac deaths.  7/27/00

Heart disease risk assessment interactive test at U.S. News  added 07/06/01

Risk Factor Family, Smoke:  
Likelihood of having a SCA increases 50% (to 1.5 per 10,000) if family has had history of SCA, 
but by 500% if the person is a current smoker (to 5 per 10,000 per year) Jan 1998 Circulation  7/26/00

Diabetes article from U.S. News
Tells why diabetes increases risk of heart disease by 2X to 4x     added 07/06/01

Heart Attack risk may increase by 2.4 if working 11+hours regularly added 07/03/01

HEART DRUGS

High_Blood_Pressure web page   added 11/06/01 

Hospital drug ($380/day) eases breathing by patients with congestive heart failure   added 08/14/01

Heart Drugs  WSJ 3/20/01  added 3/20/10

Thrombolytic treatment within 2 hours decreases chance of death within 6 months from 14% to 6%
but, increases the likelihood of getting another myocardial infarction from 0.9% to 5%  added 09/19/00
A  study of 2770 patients reported in  Hospital 2000: 84:142-148 . 

Cardiac Arrest and the Role of Thrombolytic Agents  added 12/28/00

Pycnogenol and OPCs - patented way to strengthen weak blood vessels added 09/09/00

HEART AND AED WAVEFORMS

EKG charts - become labeled when cursor is placed over a chart   added 4/29/01

Heart beat waveform during sudden cardiac arrest: with and without CPR / AED  added 09/19/00

3D Biphasic AED Technology
Has much better recovery rates by reversing the current flow, 
compensating for the body impedance, and 
allowing the energy increments to be increased. 

WHEN AND WHERE HEART ATTACKS OCCUR

Highlights of) International Guidelines 2000 for CPR and ECC added 1/26/01

Automated External Defibrillator: Key Link in the Chain of Survival added 1/25/01
Sudden cardiac death a risk for SE Asian people   added 1/22/01

Sudden Cardiac Arrest Video streaming 2.5 minutes  added 1/18/01

Early Defibrillation - Position Paper {PDF file 138KBytes} from PreHospital Emergency Care  added 12/31/00

Cardiac Science gets patent for multi-day wear AED electrodes  added 12/28/00

AED + Agilent Heartstream XL  added 12/20/00

SCD good 10 page overview on web from 1995 added 12/12/00

National Center for Early Defibrillation - new organization has an excellent overview
   and a great set of position statements by organizations that support the concept  updated 12/06/00
    which include:
    American College of Emergency Physicians, AHA, American Red Cross,
    Emergency Care Research Institute, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada,
    International Association of Chiefs of Police, International Association of Fire Fighters,
    The National Association of EMS Physicians
       see also her book

CPR & AED discussions.  Some of the best e-mail during July and Aug 2000  added 10/01/00

8 studies of sudden cardiac death   added 10/10/00
Definitions of death vary from 1 hour to 24 hour
Death rate for males 0.1%: 1 ages 45 to 54,  0.26% in ages 65-74 

Pivotal Pathway In Sudden Cardiac Death Discovered 
Clue to the cause of SCD reported in Cell Sept 2000

Survival rates with and without CPR and AED  8/19/00

Sudden Cardiac Arrest - a treatable public health crisis - from Heartstreams   8/18/00 

A Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is not a Heart Attack.  
US Deaths: SCA = 17%  Heart Attack = 24%
Skyaid can aid both heart problems.  They share most of the same risk factors.  7/28/00

SCA is not a Heart Attack -  by Chain of Survival  8/24/00

Sudden Cardiovascular Death from Ben Best   7/26/00
- was possibly the cause of 18% of the Framingham study deaths.  
- 60% of the SCD has not prior evidence of coronary artery disease. . 
- 75-90% of patents experiencing SCD were in ventricular fibrillation, 
- Myocardial infarction is the trigger in less that 20% of SCD, 
- Psychological stress can be a factor in SCD. 
- Risk of SCD increase 70% from 7AM to 9AM for all people over 65.  
- Diabetics have a high rate of SCD. 
- Risk factors for coronary heart diseases and SCD are the same:
        smoking (3X) , hypertension (3X),  and high blood cholesterol (2X), 
     Person with two risk factors increases SCD by 4.5X, with 3 factors the increase is 8.5X.  
- Being overweight increases likelihood of SCD by 2X .

Survivors of a sudden cardiac arrest live as long as those who did not have a cardiac arrest 7/26/00

Summary of CardioVascular Disease (CVD) statistics at Skyaid    from March 2000

Surviving  a sudden cardiac arrest  with Skyaid Watch and Skyaid Detailed table  8/25/00

4 Options after being defibrillated - updated 7/23/00

Scenario of defibrillation in a hospital: "Shock Him"  
Very good description for the lay public, includes analogy to car batteries 7/21/00

History of Resuscitation: 
It has only been during the past 40 years that we learned mouth-to-mouth, CPR, then AED. 7/28/00
  

The LIFEPAK 500 introduced Feb 1999 (?) apparently has this new technology which previous AEDs do not.
Click on image to get large view of an AED = LifePack 500

Wall St. Journal article on CPR  3/31/00 only 3% survive  8/18/00