What is Heart Attack and What to do

Heart attack can strike anyone. When it occurs, there is no time for delay. Most hear attack victims survive if they recognize what is happening to them and get help quickly.

What are the signals?
Signals of heart attack vary, but these are the usual warning:

1. The victim may feel uncomfortable pressure, fullness, squeezing, or pain in the center of the chest for more than two minutes.
2. Pain may spread to the shoulders, neck, or arms.
3. Severe pain, dizziness, fainting, sweating, nausea, or shortness or breath may also occur.
4. These signals are not continually present. Sometimes they subside, then return.

What should to do?

Heart attack victim commonly deny their symptom and delay getting help. That’s the first thing to do, Get Help. Phone a rescue squad, police, fire department, or whoever handles such emergencies in your community. Do you know whom to call? Find out?

If you can get to the hospital faster that you can call for help, go immediately. The victim may find it more comfortable to be transported in sitting or semi reclining position.

If you discover someone who has collapse have a chance to save that person if you can perform CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). CPR training personnel will teach you the proper procedures to use to deliver immediate temporary aid to the victim. This aid may sustain the victim until the medical help arrive.

Warming Signs of Heart Attack and Stroke

What does it feel like to have a heart attack? Occasionally, heart attack occur quietly and painlessly and are not discovered until months or even years later in the course of a routine electrocardiogram or during an autopsy (a medical examination of the body after death). Such "silent" heart attacks are just as damaging to the heart muscle as an overtly dangerous because the victim rarely seeks medical attention or takes steps to ward off further episodes.

 

In most heart attacks, however, the victim knows something is wrong. Feeling one or more of the warning sign as in the table. He or she may initially think the sensation are caused by indigestion or "heartburn." Ultimately, feeling of tightness, squeezing, or pain in the middle of the chest intensify (victim report feeling as though "an elephant were sitting on my chest" or "someone hit me in the chest with a sledgehammer"). The pain may radiate down the left arm, and jaw. The victim becomes pale, sweats profusely, grows short of breath, and may vomit. It is not uncommon for victim to experiment feelings of terror or a sense of impending doom. One cardiologist said, "It is like nothing the patient has ever known before, a feeling that something cataclysmic is happening."

 

Hearth Attack	Stroke
Prolonged, oppressive pain or unusual discomfort in center of chest	Sudden, temporary Weakness or numbness of face, arm, or leg
Pain may radiate to shoulder, Arm, neck, or jaw	Temporary loss of speech, or trouble in speaking or understanding speech
Sweating may accompany pain or discomfort	Temporary dimness or loss of vision, particularly in one eye
Nausea, vomiting, and shortness of breath may also occur	An episode of double vision
	Unexplained dizziness or unsteadiness
	Change in personality, mental ability or pattern of headaches

 

The Pericardium

The pericardium is a conical membranous sac in which the heart and the commencement of the great vessels are contained. It is placed behind the sternum and the cartilages of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh ribs of the left side, in the interval between the pleurae.

It apex is directed upward and surrounds the great vessels about two inches above their origin from the base of the heart. Its base is attached to the central tendon and to the left part of the adjoining muscular structure of the Diaphragm.

In front it is separated from the sternum by the remains of the thymus gland above and a little loose areola tissue below, and is covered by the margins of the lungs, especially the left. Behind it rests upon the bronchi; the esophagus and the descending aorta. Laterally, it is covered by the pleura and is in relation to the inner surface of the lungs; the phrenic nerve with its accompanying vessel descend between the pericardium and pleura on either side.