Even if you aren’t in the medical realm professionally or simply out of curiosity, you should know what an external defibrillator is. An external defibrillator is effectively a tool that is used to restart the heart; most likely you’ve seen it before in television and in film rather than in person. Essentially the external defibrillator sends a massive electric shock into the body that can restart the heart and lungs depending on the level of failure. It is not a guaranteed tool for keeping the heart pumping however, and in some cases the use of the external defibrillator must be stopped. An external defibrillator should only be used in someone trained in the operation of the machine, giving an external defibrillator to someone with no knowledge of its use can be highly dangerous, especially if used on someone who is not in need of an external defibrillator. Using an external defibrillator on someone who is not in need of it can be highly harmful and cause the heart to stop beating, which in turns requires the use of an external defibrillator to get it started again. Most people assume you can just use the external defibrillator as is on someone who is going into cardiac arrest, but a board must be placed under the person’s back to ‘ground’ them, preventing full electrocution, and a gel or pads placed on the areas where the external defibrillator is being used to prevent electrical burns.
An external defibrillator is, as previously mentioned, not a miracle tool. Sometimes it is unable to get the heart to start again, and once the external defibrillator proves itself not to work, there is very little that can be done to get the heart started again. Due to the numerous causes of heart failure in many different circumstances, the effectiveness of an external defibrillator is limited to a somewhat unknown quantity; hence why when the cardiac arrest starts on patients in hospital the external defibrillator will always be used on them in an attempt to restart the heart. Hopefully now you know just that little bit more about the external defibrillator.
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