Cardiac Arrest Vs Heart Attack : Michael Jackson

Posted by pelot on 26 June, 2009

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This item was filled under [ Health, Lifestyle ]

Cardiac Arrest Vs Heart Attack – The death of Michael Jackson is raising the awareness about cardiac arrest. That’s what the King of Pop’s doctors believe caused his sudden death on Thursday. In what has become a bad day for celebrities, Michael Jackson died late this afternoon after suffering from what news reports indicate was a “cardiac arrest.” A cardiac arrest is different from (but may be caused by) a heart attack or myocardial infarction, where blood flow to the still-beating heart is interrupted (as in cardiogenic shock).

Cardiac Arrest Vs Heart Attack

Unfortunately, there is always a lot of confusion at such times as to what, exactly, a cardiac arrest is. Is it the same thing as a heart attack? Actually, no. Heart attacks and cardiac arrests are two different things.

Here are the different of Cardiac Arrest Vs Heart Attack :

A heart attack, or myocardial infarction, occurs when a coronary artery (one of the arteries that supplies blood to the heart muscle) becomes suddenly blocked. The sudden blockage robs a portion of the heart muscle of its vital blood supply, and the muscle dies. So a heart attack is the death of a part of the heart muscle.

A cardiac arrest, in contrast, is caused by a sudden heart arrhythmia called ventricular fibrillation. In ventricular fibrillation, the electrical signals within the heart suddenly become completely chaotic. Because these electrical signals control the timing and the organization of the heartbeat, when those signals degenerate to total chaos, the heart suddenly stops beating. That is, it goes into “cardiac arrest.” The most common outcome of a cardiac arrest is sudden death.