Eli5: what is the difference between a heart attack and a cardiac arrest?
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Cardiac Arrest: Heart has stopped beating.
Heart Attack (“Myocardial Infarction”): The blood that nourishes the heart (and gives it oxygen) has been blocked or is otherwise not getting to the heart, and the tissue has begun to die.
If you sever someone’s spine, so all their blood is still where it should be but the signal has stopped, then the heart stops, and that’s cardiac arrest, but not a heart attack.
If you have an artery that is blocked, and so the heart is pumping but some part of it isn’t getting fed with oxygen, that’s an MI (heart attack), but not cardiac arrest.
Heart Attack = Your heart is choking and is struggling to breathe
Cardiac Arrest = Your heart passed out and isn’t waking up
The medically precise terms are myocardial infarction and cardiac arrest. Heart attack usually refers to the first, but it’s not uncommon to hear it used generically for either. Since the number one cause of arrest is MI, it’s fine, but of course you can have arrest without infarction and vice versa.
Your heart is a pump that pushes blood to the rest of your body. Blood supplies nutrients – oxygen, glucose, and takes away waste products – CO2, lactate. The heart has its own electrical supply – which controls how fast and hard the heart pumps. The heart (and its electrical supply) need blood (sugar, oxygen) to work.
A heart attack, or myocardial infarction [heart-muscle death], occurs when the heart does not get blood supply, and part of it dies. This often happens because a clot (a block in the artery) gets sent to a small blood vessel that supplies the heart and blood cannot get through to the muscle. A heart attack can sometimes immidatly kill a person because the heart can no longer beat, but people can survive a heart attack if the size of the muscle loss is not great, there are other sources of blood supply, or they get interventions early.
In contrast, cardiac arrest occurs when the heart does not generate electrical activity necessary to beat. It can occur because there is no electrical activity, or the electrical activity causes the heart to beat in a way that’s so disorganized and fast that blood cannot flow. This can occur because of a heart attack, electrolyte abnormalities, or other reasons.
Cardiac arrest is usually an electrical problem, while heart attacks are a plumbing problem.
If I understand the first post:
A heart attack can cause cardiac arrest, but a cardiac arrest is not necessarily a heart attack.
Heart attack = faulty or blocked blood flow to the heart
Cardiac arrest = heart stops
So DeMar Hamlin had a cardiac arrest on the football field, but not a heart attack because it wasn’t impaired blood flow to his heart that caused it to stop. (Or do we know that for sure now?)
A drug addict could have a cardiac arrest without necessarily having a heart attack.
This makes sense. A woman I know had a heart attack, but it was so mild she didn’t really notice until she went to the ER because she was feeling off. They told her she’d had a mild heart attack.
A cardiac arrest is when your heart suddenly stops pumping blood around your body. Everyone goes into cardiac arrest. Does not matter what you die from you go into cardiac arrest.
Heart attack is when blood flow is cut off from the heart. Cardiac arrest is when the heart stops beating.
Ohhh one of these I can answer
The heart is at the end of the day a pump made of living muscle cells. A heart attack is when blood flow to the tissues of the heart is blocked or there isn’t enough oxygenated blood flow to the heart itself. This lack of oxygen causes cell death. If left untreated it can lead to the entire pump failing, the heart stops beating, you’re in cardiac arrest.
There are numerous other causes of cardiac arrest. Respiratory failure, shock (of any type), electrolyte imbalance, trauma, etc.
Any condition that leads to a lack of oxygen getting to your heart or interfere with the electrical activity (in the case of electrolyte imbalance) can cause cardiac arrest.
Source- Registered Nurse who is obsessed with cardiology
Going to use this thread for a question about Heart :
I have since this year like a phobia of dying from a Heart attack.
I have chest pain since a year, checked a cardiologist and i’m fine (30 year old doing some demanding sports, bmi is perfect), have seen a lot of doctor because still concerned but my Heart is working perfectly.
Still, i’m afraid. My pain is mostly due to the sport i’m overdoing and some is in my head but I can’t get rid of the fear of having a Heart attack.
How Can I be sure it’s not a Heart attack when i’m panicking like crazy about that ? What Can I check or do AT home to be sure i’m not dying ?
( Already trying a professional for this, trying emdr to get rid of this ridiculous fear )
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