Online CPR Certification Blog

10 heart attack early warning signs that you should look out for

Heart attack occurs when the flow of blood to the heart is blocked.

This blockage is often due to the build up of fat, cholesterol and other substances to form plague.

Most heart problems are not accompanied with clear warning signs and someone might just end up dying mysteriously.

Luckily heart attacks or myocardial infarctioncome with clear warning signs, but when these signs areignored it can lead to death.

Listed below are some early heart attack warning signs to look out for:

• Feeling of discomfort in the chest

This is the most common sign of heart attack, and it is usually as a result of blocked arteries.

These blocked arteries, cause an uncomfortable feeling of pain, pressure, and tightness in the chest. It is very important to keep in mind (especially ladies), you may not feel any chest pain even when you are at risk of a heart attack.

Passing out Or Fainting, What Causes Them And What Are The Remedies.

Fainting or syncoperefers to a sudden and temporary loss of consciousness, usually because of a lack of oxygen in the brain.

A feeling of lightheadedness, weakness, and dizziness usually follow fainting or passing out episodes.

Though fainting isn’t a medical condition, it is most times a symptom of an undiagnosed medical issue.

Causes of fainting

Many reported cases of fainting usually have no clear cause, but there are a few factors that may lead to passing out. Some of them are:

• Hyperventilationis a condition in which you start to breathe very fast.

Five common emergencies and how to handle them

An emergency refers to any circumstance that may constitute or lead to damage of lives, health, property or an environment.

Practically any emergency requires a swift response to prevent it from getting worse; this explains why it’sessential to understand and know ways in which one can curb emergencies.

First aid training for emergencies and CPR certification are conventional ways of curbing emergencies, it is also critical to know some frequently occurring emergencies and how you can handle them.

This is why I have provided a list of five of the most common emergencies and how to handle them. Without wasting much of your time let’s delve in.

• Scalds and burns

A burn is any skin damage that happens when a person comes in contact with dry heat.This dry heat may be from hot metals, fire, high electric current, friction or corrosive chemicals (Acids or Alkalis).

Asthma

Asthma is a chronic disease of the airways that transport air to and from the lungs. A person with asthma has the insides of his airways (bronchial tube) swollen or inflamed due to an increased sensitivity to irritations caused by allergens.

A minor case of asthma does not severely affect the life span of a sufferer, and can be effectively managed by using rescue inhalers and control inhalers.

Chronic asthma can last for years and sometimes a lifetime. This severe case of asthma requires a longer lasting inhaler or oral steroids that keep your airways open – these are the first aid equipment for asthmatic patients.

Obesity in a healthy manner

The Toronto-based study has concluded that provided you are healthy, your obese state does not expose you to an increased risk of death. This conflicts with vital studies done in Europe.

How the study was done

In order to carry out this study, the researchers examined 54,089 participants of both genders, all obtained from five cohort studies through 2017. The York University’s Faculty of Health researchers compared the otherwise healthy participants to those who had elevated lipids, blood pressure or glucose, or other metabolic factors such as ethnicity, lifestyle, smoking status and age.

Impact of E-cigarette flavorings on blood vessels

How the study was done

To carry out this study, researchers set up several lab tests where they examined what happened to endothelial cells to various e-cigarette flavorings.

These are cells commonly found in the arteries and veins. The impact of different concentrations was tested with popular flavorings like butter, banana, mint, eucalyptus, clove, cinnamon, vanilla, and burnt.

All these flavorings were found to damage cells under high concentrations during the lab tests. Vanilla, mint, burnt, clove and cinnamon impaired the production of nitric oxide. This molecule is necessary for preventing inflammation and clotting such that blood vessels can widen when blood pressure is too high.

Blood Pressure Associated with Lesions

 A study was published in the journal Neurology in which the researchers asserted that individuals with brain areas where tissues were dead due to limited blood supply likely suffered from brain disease. The autopsied brain also indicated the presence of Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Zoe Arvanitakis said that “high blood pressure has already been associated with dementia and stroke. However, the focus of our study was on linking different values of blood pressure with more factors rather than just the common stroke and dementia.”

Looking at brain tissue

Blood pressure measures the force of blood flow in our capillaries, arteries, and veins. When this force is too great, the pressure is said to be high while too weak force is an indicator of low blood pressure.

CVD-Screening with Arm Resting

A study was done with the aim of determining whether it is viable to screen for CVD with resting or exercise ECG in asymptomatic adults at intermediate or high risk of CVD events.

Members of USPSTF involved in the study found that evidence was limited with regards to whether one should be tested for CVD with the arm resting or at an exercise. These recommendations are in line with 2018 recommendations by the task force.

CVD Risk Assessment

Clinical settings commonly use the resting ABI test to detect the presence or absence of PAD. It’s important to note that the results obtained are normally varied with regards to the kind of measurement protocol used. In this method, the systolic blood pressure at the ankle is divided by the brachial artery in a patient who lies down. If the ratio is not more than one (<0.9), an individual is said to be in the abnormal range of the scale.

High risk of cardiometabolic in China

Aihua Jia from the Department of Endocrinology at Xijing Hospital which is based in Xi’an, China and the colleagues published in the study background that populations with normal weight obesity are often neglected and the reason being that they do not have obvious change when it comes to the body shape.

However, it has been reported by a number of studies that there is an increase in cardiovascular risks in a population with normal-weight obesity, and this may also increase the risk of death caused by cardiovascular disease-disease in the elderly people.

What Causes Medical Errors?

 By estimation, about 100,000 to 200,000 deaths per year are contributed by medical errors, this is according to the explanation that was issued by the Institute of Medicine.

Burnout is a condition of emotional exhaustion or depersonalization that is very common with more than half of doctors, as revealed by the study.

The scope of the study

Physicians countrywide were surveyed by the researchers with the aim of understanding the relationship that exists between major medical errors and burnout in their careers.