I know defibrillators are used to help people experiencing cardiac arrest. But how exactly do electric shocks restore the normal rhythm? All bodily functions are depended on this one organ, so when this one little organ fails, what responds to the shocks to help bring the body back to life?
It’s astounding that this even happens at all in some cases.
In: Biology
The heart isn’t like a battery. One misconception is that if your heart completely stops with no electrical activity (asystole) we can “jump start” the heart with a machine. That’s not the case. The heart muscle has an electrical pathway. If there’s an interruption like a heart attack, which makes the electrical activity have to find a new pathway it can cause dysrhythmia. This means the electricity kind of short circuits and doesn’t tell the heart muscle to contract properly. So the electrical shocks are to reset that pathway.
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