Nursing Educator and the AED

Personal Experience of Teaching and Helping Other Nurses to be More Ready in the Use of a Phillips Heart Start Defibrillator (AED)

Children and young adults as well as other adults can and do have cardiac arrest. Estimations state that undiagnosed heart conditions cause the deaths of one individual every three days in organized youth sports in the United States. (AED Universe, 2012, paraphrased) The Survivor’s Foundation states that 460,000 deaths occur each year in the U.S. from sudden cardiac arrest. Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is reported to occur “when the lower chambers of the heart (the ventricles) suddenly stop beating normally and develop what is called ventricular fibrillation (VF). VF is a chaotic heart rhythm that is similar where the heart muscle begins quivering which prevents the heart from effectively pumping blood. If this condition is not corrected immediately, death will follow within ten minutes.Nursing Educator and the AED