There 's not one single television show about medicine without at least one person going into cardiac arrest, on just about every episode. Then you see the medical staff rushing in with a cart full of electronic equipment, place paddles on the patient 's chest, shout "clear" and restarting the heart with a shock or two. Where does fiction stop and when does reality kick in? Can an electric shock really restart a heart?
A heart attack is caused when blood flow to the heart, or to a section of the heart, become blocked. Two severe problems that are linked to a heart attack may be treated by defibrillation or administering an electric shock to the chest. Heart failure occurs when the heart cannot pump enough blood, and sometimes it stops beating completely. Arrhythmia consists of an irregular heartbeat, and includes any change from the normal pumping sequence of the heart.
Ventricular tachycardia is a particular type of arrhythmia, and it occurs when the lower chamber of the heart, called ventricles, beat very rapidly. When this occurs, the heart an start to quiver without actually pumping blood. If blood flow stops, tissues throughout the body die within a few minutes, therefore a quick action is necessary to start the blood pumping. More often than not, an electric shock will do the trick.
When the heart is functioning properly, cells in the heart, called pacemaker cells, send chemical signals that are converted to an electrical impulse. Nerves carry this electrical impulse to the heart muscle, signaling the heart to contract and pump blood. However, when these signals become uncontrolled, the heart cannot beat with its normal rhythm.
Electric shocks are administered through a defibrillator, a device that delivers electrical energy near the heart. A sudden jolt of electricity causes the heart to contract all at once, often ending the arrhythmia and allowing the heart to resume its normal pace. And even if the heart has stopped beating, this sudden contraction can restart it.
However, the paddles used in hospitals, the same ones indispensable for any hospital TV show, are just one type of defibrillator. There are many people who undergo heart surgery, and have artificial pacemakers implanted. The artificial pacemakers are battery operated defibrillators, which take over for the natural pacemaker cells by administering a shock to the heart at each heart beat.
Still, these type of television shows that picture the world of medicine are based on reality. They 're not pure fiction, inventing all sorts of cases, diseases and cures, but are inspired by real life situations and real cases that doctors encounter. So when you see that medical team rushing with a stacked cart and struggling to restart a person 't heart, it 's a simulation of the real procedure. Paddles are used in hospitals to administer electric shocks to the heart, in order to help it resume its rhythm and restart pumping blood.
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