Signs and Symptoms
Cardiac arrest is an abrupt cessation of pump function in the heart (as evidenced by the absence of a palpable pulse). Prompt intervention can usually reverse a cardiac arrest, but without such intervention it will almost always lead to death. In certain cases, it is an expected outcome to a serious illness.
However, due to inadequate cerebral perfusion, the patient will be unconscious and will have stopped breathing. The main diagnostic criterion to diagnose a cardiac arrest, (as opposed to respiratory arrest which shares many of the same features), is lack of circulation; however, there are a number of ways of determining this. Near death experiences are reported by 10-20% of people who survived cardiac arrest.
Read more about this topic: Cardiac Arrest
Famous quotes containing the words signs and/or symptoms:
“It is one of the signs of the times. We confess that we have risen from reading this book with enlarged ideas, and grander conceptions of our duties in this world. It did expand us a little.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“In retirement, only money and symptoms are consequential.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)