Heart Attack and Cardiac Arrest

Heart Attack and Cardiac Arrest
Every year 1.1 million people in the United States have a heart attack, and about 550,000 of them die. (National Institutes). Heart attacks affect millions of people annually; discovering the causes, treatment, and prevention is crucial to saving human life. A wide range of causes that vary from unhealthy lifestyles to an underlying heart condition can cause heart attacks. Treatments can range from oral medications to major open heart surgery. Prevention can often be as simple as making miniscule lifestyle changes such as dieting and exercise. Treatment and diagnosis are dependent upon each victim’s overall health and the health of the heart.
Most heart attacks are caused when your arteries or other vessels become filled with a substance known as plaque. Eventually the arteries will become so filled that a section of plaque will burst open causing a blood clot, or occlusion, to form at the site. If the clot is large enough it will inhibit oxygen-enriched blood from reaching the heart. The lack of oxygen to the heart begins to cause damage to the heart muscle and surrounding tissue. If the occlusion is not quickly remedied the heart will begin to die (De Milto “Heart Attack” 1362).
Heart attacks can be caused by a number of other reasons, although, the most common is coronary artery disease also known as CAD. Coronary artery disease is the gradual buildup of plaque in the arteries that supply oxygen to the heart (Stonely “Coronary Artery” 164).   Heart attacks can be caused by other less common reasons, such as illegal substance abuse, emotional stress, extreme hypothermia, and cigarette smoking. If a heart attack is caused by any of the above four reasons the coronary artery has become constricted to point where blood can no longer flow through the artery to the heart (National Institutes)
Often in movies when someone has a heart attack they usually exhibit excruciating pain. This is not true for everyone. The symptoms of a heart...