Cardiac Arrest and Heart Block

Among the hearth problems you may hear about either in connection with heart attack or in other contexts are cardiac arrest and heart block. You may also hear about congestive heart failure, congenital heart disease, and rheumatic fever.

Any time an individual’s heart stops heating, he or she is said to be suffering cardiac arrest. The heart may stop because of heart attack or for many other reasons, drowning, electrocution, or strangulation for example.

When cardiac arrest occurs, immediate action is necessary or the patient may die, the brain can survive without damage for only about four minutes after circulation is stopped.

Heart Block
Sometimes a heart attack victim who seem to be recovering will experience a sudden slowing or stopping of the heartbeat. (This phenomenon may also occur for reasons other than heart attack, but in this setting it usually effect patients in their sixties or older, and is due to an aging process).

Heart block results from a failure of the electrical connection between the atria and the ventricles: Impulses do not reach the main pumping chamber often enough. Normal heart can then repair itself within a few days, and the natural rhythm returns. When this does not happen, an artificial pace maker can be implanted and can take over the job indefinitely as long as the batteries are changed periodically.