“Ten to 15 years ago, such patients would not have had a chance to survive,” said Primary II. internal clinic of cardiology and angiology VFN Jan Bělohlávek.
About a month ago, they brought a foreigner to his clinic who unexpectedly collapsed at a congress in Prague. His heart stopped for over an hour. He survived the procedure and was discharged without serious complications.
In similar cases, paramedics previously had to declare the patient dead after unsuccessful resuscitation. Now the procedure is different.
He was born at 23 weeks, weighing half a kilo. Even thanks to the special bed, your 4-month-old has no problems today
Rescuers have cars equipped with resuscitation pumps, which revive the patient even during transport to the cardiac center, where doctors will take care of him and eliminate the causes of cardiac arrest as quickly as possible.
Thanks to this, it is possible to save even those who have a pledge for several tens of minutes. According to a study by doctors from VFN, a third of patients survive after an invasive procedure in the hospital after almost an hour’s stay. Before, such patients would not even be able to see doctors.
Healthy. Yet he collapsed
Six to seven thousand people have a cardiac arrest in the Czech Republic every year. In Prague alone, there are two cases a day.
Increasingly, these are people of working age, who are primarily affected by resuscitation problems. They didn’t have any health problems before, they didn’t even have to be smokers – and they unexpectedly collapsed.
“Epidemiologically, we see younger patients more often,” confirmed cardiologist Bělohlávek. “There are two reasons. We didn’t see those patients before, they didn’t get to the hospital. The second thing is that fatal complications, most often ischemic heart disease, reach lower grades,” he explained.
This is also the case with Jaroslav Pěkný, who suffered cardiac arrest after boxing training.
“I ended up in the box after an hour of training, then we talked with the trainer and at that moment I dropped,” the man described to the editor.
My heart stopped for 13 minutes and the coach who was standing next to him called for help.
After a week of comprehensive care, he was released from the hospital, and then attended regular rehabilitation and examinations. Unlike a number of others, he didn’t even have the subsequent complications that people have after a heart attack or heart failure. It often involves movement problems and limited performance.
According to doctors, it is important that people start CPR themselves before the ambulance arrives. The new procedure is already being used in Prague. Doctors hope to expand to other cities where there are specialized cardio centers. There are 18 highly specialized cardiac centers across the country.
Diseases of the circulatory system are the most common cause of death in the Czech Republic. The year before last, 47,873 Czechs died of problems with the heart or blood vessels.
