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- Factors that increase or decrease your chances of a heart attack
- Ways to recognize and react to signs and symptoms of a heart attack
- The most common heart attack treatments used today
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What Is a Heart Attack?
A heart attack, or acute myocardial infarction (AMI), is a sudden, complete (or near-complete) stoppage of oxygenated blood flow to the heart muscle, or myocardium. When the myocardium is oxygen-deprived, it begins to die within 20–60 minutes of the stoppage. As the duration of the stoppage increases, so does the volume of irreversibly damaged myocardium. A heart attack can result in:
- Death
- Sudden cardiac death (cardiac arrest)
- Permanent disability
- Heart failure (permanent deficiency in the heart’s pumping action)
A heart attack is a potentially debilitating and life-threatening event. An estimated 1.2 million American men and women suffer a heart attack each year. Roughtly 50% of these people die before ever reaching a hospital, and
approximately 10% die while in the hospital. Knowing the factors that increase and decrease your risk of a heart attack, and being able to recognize and react to the signs and symptoms of a heart attack, can greatly increase your chances of surviving and prevent damage to the heart.
If you experience symptoms that might be a heart attack,
the single most important thing you can do is seek immediate medical care, ideally by contacting emergency medical services (EMS). During a heart attack, each passing minute increases the chances of a poor prognosis.
Basic Anatomy of the Human Heart
The heart is a muscular organ that receives nutrient- and oxygen-poor blood from the body via the veins and pumps nutrient- and oxygen-rich blood back into the body via the arteries. The process unfolds in the heart’s four chambers.
- Right atrium: The right atrium receives deoxygenated blood from two large veins: the superior vena cava, which returns blood from the head and upper body, and the inferior vena cava, which returns blood from the legs and lower torso. After the right atrium fills with “used” blood, it contracts, and the tricuspid valve opens, allowing the blood to flow into the right ventricle.
- Right ventricle: Once the right ventricle fills with blood, the tricuspid valve closes so that blood cannot flow backward. The pulmonary valve then opens, and the right ventricle contracts, pumping blood through the pulmonary artery and into the lungs, where the blood is replenished with oxygen and nutrients.
- Left atrium: The left atrium receives oxygen-rich blood from the lungs via the pulmonary vein. As the left atrium contracts, blood is pumped through the mitral valve and into the left ventricle.
- Left ventricle: After the left ventricle is filled with oxygenated blood, the mitral valve closes, the aortic valve opens, and the left ventricle contracts, pushing oxygen-rich blood into the aorta (the largest artery in the human body) and out to the entire body.
The rhythmic expansion and contraction of each chamber, and the opening and closing of each valve, is regulated by a complex series of electrical impulses. The continuous action of this muscle requires that it receive a continuous supply of oxygen- and nutrient-rich blood.
Oxygen is supplied to the heart muscle (myocardium) by the left and right coronary arteries, which begin at the aorta. From here, the coronary arteries branch out and become progressively smaller. Large sections of the coronary arteries cover the surface of the heart, and the smaller branches penetrate into the heart muscle. When these arteries are blocked, the myocardium is deprived of oxygen (a state known as ischemia), and it dies.
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