Difference between a heart attack, cardiac arrest, and stroke?
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A cardiac arrest is any condition where your heart is not pumping blood. There are lots of kinds, but they all result in death without treatment. The most common and treatable kind is because of a heart attack (it stops beating because the muscle has run out of energy or simply died off), but even under the best circumstances the survival rate is *only* 80%-ish (specifically, if it’s witnessed by a paramedic). Across all of them, around 90% or more of cardiac arrest victims die.
A heart attack is an event that injures the heart. The most common one by far involves a blood vessel that supplies the heart being blocked by a clot or by a ‘plaque’ (fatty stuff on the vessel walls), but there are other types as well, like one that happens because of another serious illness. Heart attack is the single most common cause of cardiac arrest.
A stroke is essentially a heart attack of the brain. They’re most commonly caused by a fat or clot blockage of a blood vessel, but occasionally also happen when a vessel tears and the person bleeds into their skull. This kills brain cells, which can leave permanent problems like being unable to move or speak normally.
Edit: kind of a random downvote, don’t you think?
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