Eli5: what is the difference between a heart attack and a cardiac arrest?
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Im a nurse working in cardiology and was once a paramedic working both pre-hospital and in a trauma center emergency department.
Heart attacks are a general term to talk about some sort of block in the arteries supplying oxygen to the heart. It could be more general, but this seems to be what most ppl think of when they are talking about heart attacks. Essentially what is happening is your heart, or a specific part of the heart muscle, is being denied oxygen and begins reacting/dying. In response you get chest-pain, shortness of breath, that pain in your shoulder and jaw, things like that. Inside the body your heart is beginning to have difficulty functioning properly. This can cause a whole bunch of changes to vital signs and the general function of your heart and the vessels (veins and arteries). Ultimately, if left unchecked this can lead to the next part of your question, cardiac arrest. (Not necessarily so cut and dry, but gets a bit more complex depending on location of the block, how much of the vessels is blocked, etc.)
On the other hand cardiac arrest means your heart actually stopped or is moving, but in a way that prevents an adequate amount of blood to pump into the body (see ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia). Your blood is no longer moving around your body. You cannot supply your other organs with oxygen or nutrients, and cannot remove the products of waste from your cells just living. This is when CPR is used. People in cardiac arrest have no pulse, no breathing, and are unconscious. Cardiac arrest can have many “causes”. Your heart could be beating too fast or erratically (V-tach/V-Fib), could cease meaningful function due to damage/sudden injury directly to the heart, long term heart disease, and many other things. The point is that your heart has stopped pumping blood either entirely, or is not functioning properly to pump enough blood. At this point you need to fix the underlying cause in-order to restart the heart. Look up “H’s and T’s” for a cardiac arrest and those are some common and reversible causes of cardiac arrest that if you fix will return circulation to the body.
This was a rough explanation, but if you would like to continue learning or would like to do something to prepare in case a loved one or someone you know experiences cardiac arrest, a great place to start is to become CPR certified. The red cross offers many classes and perusing their website would be a great start to that journey! You could also look into the American Heart Association (AHA) for more as well! I don’t know what options exist for those not in the US, sorry.
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