this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
39 points (97.6% liked)
Health - Resources and discussion for everything health-related
2158 readers
286 users here now
Health: physical and mental, individual and public.
Discussions, issues, resources, news, everything.
See the pinned post for a long list of other communities dedicated to health or specific diagnoses. The list is continuously updated.
Nothing here shall be taken as medical or any other kind of professional advice.
Commercial advertising is considered spam and not allowed. If you're not sure, contact mods to ask beforehand.
Linked videos without original description context by OP to initiate healthy, constructive discussions will be removed.
Regular rules of lemmy.world apply. Be civil.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
As a kid we were told to never use them, as an adult we were told to never use them. I understand what an AED is and how to use one but only because my current job trained me...I'm sure plenty of people don't even know that they're totally automatic.
I was an EMT years ago and my first instinct would still be to tell someone to call 911 and start CPR. Not to tell someone to find an AED
Instincts aside.
I assume actually using an AED is always better than CPR. Is that correct?
Paramedic here! They both serve different purposes. CPR keeps blood circulating to keep one’s brain and other important organs alive. An AED will detect the activity of someone’s heart and if it is a specific rhythm it will shock it. Cardiac arrest isn’t always a flat line, it can be the heart quivering or ineffectively pumping. This shock stops the heart briefly and then hopefully their heart will return to a normal rhythm.
In the simplest terms I can think of, someone in cardiac arrest needs both. Without CPR their brain will die. Without an AED they are less likely to come out of cardiac arrest and will just remain dead.