Defibrillator 101: What It Is and Why Everyone Needs To Know How to Use It

//Defibrillator 101: What It Is and Why Everyone Needs To Know How to Use It

Defibrillator 101: What It Is and Why Everyone Needs To Know How to Use It

We’ve all seen defibrillators used in our favorite medical dramas. Defibrillators are the electrical contraptions that medical professionals used to kick-start a patient’s heart when they’re suffering from cardiac arrhythmia.

Defibrillators are used in medical emergencies by healthcare experts all the time but because cardiac arrhythmia doesn’t come with a warning, victims don’t always make it to the emergency center in time.

What’s an AED?

Automated external defibrillators (AEDs) were created to make the defibrillator more accessible to everyone. Unlike traditional defibrillators, AEDs are battery-operated devices that are lightweight and easy to carry around. They come with sticky pads and electrodes that can be attached to the patient’s chest.

The electrodes of an AED can reads the patient’s heartbeat and transmits the data to a computer system which then determines whether the patient is experiencing a heart attack and requires an electric shock. If the computer decides that a shock is needed, the AED will use voice prompts to guide the user through the process.

The original defibrillators were designed to be used by medical professionals but today’s AEDs can be used by anyone at all and don’t require a background in medicine.

Why Are AEDs Important?

Heart Attack

Everyone should know how to use an AED for one simple reason—they save lives! According to the CDC, 1 in 4 Americans die from a heart attack every year. Cardiac arrests can be prevented with timely usage of an AED.

For every minute-long delay, a patient’s chances of surviving a cardiac arrest go down by 10%. On average it takes around 8 minutes for rescuers to reach patients, meaning their chances of survival drop significantly.

It’s during these precious minutes where the use of AED becomes crucial which is why it’s important for the average citizen to know how to use them. When there’s no early intervention, the chances of surviving a cardiac arrest can drop to 5%.

Using an AED on time and even administering CPR can increase survival rates to 50%

Swim Harmony encourages all citizens to learn basic lifesaving skills and learn how to properly use an AED so they are always prepared. With proper training, you may be able to save a life!

At Swim Harmony we offer basic lifesaving certifications along which consists of AED and first-aid training. All our training sessions are led by experienced rescuers and healthcare professionals.

Contact us today to learn more about our training programs.

2019-04-23T10:47:52+00:00April 23rd, 2019|blog|0 Comments

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