If you’ve watched a medical show, you’ve already probably seen a scenario wherein a patient’s heart stops beating, and the medical team shocks the patient in hopes of bringing them back to life. The machine that they use is a defibrillator, and was only available in a hospital setting. In today’s time, however, there’s already a defibrillator that allows people to use them even outside of the hospital premises, and that’s called an automated external defibrillator or AED.
What Is An AED?
An AED is a portable medical device that people use when someone is experiencing cardiac arrest and requires a quick procedure. It’s an easy-to-use device that can analyze the heart’s rhythm and provide an electric shock to defibrillate the heartbeat back to the normal rhythm.
With an AED, you’d be able to save lives anywhere the attack may happen. Just ensure that you purchase a legitimate AED, which you can buy online from reputable stores like livcor.com.au.
Benefits Of AED
One of the leading causes of death in the world is cardiac arrest. Unfortunately, cardiac arrests can happen to anyone at any time of the day—you can’t control when it occurs. With that, you’d be able to appreciate the convenience of having an AED readily available anywhere.
Moreover, listed below are the benefits of having AED in your household or workspace.
-
Early Prevention
If a person experiences a sudden cardiac arrest, you need to immediately provide an electric shock to their heart to bring their heartbeat back to its normal rhythm. Every minute that passes by while the person is experiencing cardiac arrest, the more fatal it becomes.
When a cardiac arrest occurs, contact emergency services immediately and provide first aid treatment, including using an AED on them.
-
Saves Lives
If the person experiencing cardiac arrest is far from emergency medical services (EMS), AED can help save their life. It might take several minutes before the EMS would be able to reach the scene, and the patient might not be able to make it on time. When you have an AED readily available, you’d be increasing the chance of saving a person’s life by 75%.
-
Reduces Damage
Modern AED disallows a person to provide a shock to a person’s heart who still has a steady heartbeat as it could give more damage and harm. A shock is only needed when the person’s heart stops beating due to cardiac arrest. When the heart is still beating, and you still proceed with giving an electric shock, you could increase their chances of developing heart failure.
-
Easy To Operate
One great thing about having an AED is the ease of usage that allows anyone to operate it. The purpose of an AED is to enable anyone to save lives even without a medical professional’s presence. You don’t need to attend special training classes so that you can be valid to operate one.
When you purchase an AED, there’s an instruction manual included that discusses the steps you need to take when you need to use it. Ideally, you should read it first after purchasing your AED so you’ll have an idea of how to operate it. There’s no use scanning the manual when the person is already experiencing cardiac arrest.
-
Convenient
Apart from ease of operation, an AED is convenient as it’s a portable medical device that you can freely bring with you anywhere. In most cases, an AED should be readily available in your home or workplace so you can provide immediate care just in case one experiences a cardiac arrest.
In scenarios where a person has a cardiac arrest, you can easily carry the AED next to the person as it’s lightweight and portable, allowing you to tend to the person and save their life quickly.
Where Should You Have An AED?
Since the benefits of having an AED are astonishing, you might be wondering if you need to have one at home, or you could just rely on the EMS response as you’re only a few blocks away from the hospital. To further help you out, listed below are the places that should have an AED readily available.
-
Workplace
No matter what kind of business you run, if you have employees working for you, you should have an AED as you’ll never know the chances when someone might experience cardiac arrest. Even with a medical certificate, you can never know if an employee has a medical history or heart problems run in their family. Just to be sure, it wouldn’t hurt to have an AED handy in your workplace.
-
School
Even if most cardiac arrest cases are common among the elderly and adults, you should also anticipate the chances of children experiencing cardiac arrest. When a student experiences sudden cardiac arrest, and you’re not able to tend to their need immediately, your school could be facing a severe lawsuit.
-
Places That Hold Large Audiences
If you’re running a business that holds large audiences or has many customers, you should have an AED with you. You could be running a grocery store, coffee shop, concert hall, event place, resort, or restaurant. You’ll never know if a person is at high risk for having a cardiac arrest, so it’s better to be safe than be sorry.
-
Home
If you’re living in a household with people at high risk for developing cardiac arrest or already have a history of having one, you should have an AED readily available in your home. Along with this, if you have a family history of having a cardiac arrest, it’ll be safe to have one as well, just in case something unfortunate happens. While it can be costly, it’ll be able to help save lives.
Conclusion
Cardiac arrest can happen to anyone, anytime, and anywhere. With that, you need to prepare for any sudden attacks. An AED would be helpful as it’s a portable device that helps bring back the heart’s rhythm to normal. Ideally, most places should have one readily available just in case an unfortunate event occurs. It’ll also be great if you promote employee health in your workplace to keep your employees in tip-top shape.
