What is SCA?
Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is when the heart rhythm becomes chaotic. It usually results from a disturbance in your heart that disrupts its pumping action, stopping the blood flow to your brain and the rest of your body.
It’s a medical emergency that if not treated immediately, will result in death within a few minutes.
How serious is SCA?
-
Worldwide, seven million people are impacted annually.
-
More than 25000 per year in Australia suffer From SCA out of hospital every year. (Heart Foundation).
-
Every minute that passes without defibrillation reduced survival rate by 10%.
-
The average response time for emergency services is around eight to ten minutes.
-
Only 12% of people currently survive SCA.
-
Only 12% of SCA cases have a defibrillator available.
CPR and early defibrillation are the answer.
CPR stands for cardiopulmonary resuscitation. It is a lifesaving procedure that is given to someone who is unresponsive and not breathing normally.
It helps to pump blood around the person’s body when their heart can’t. In addition, it helps prevent brain damage and limits cardiac and vital organ damage, whilst significantly increasing the chance of survival. It also buys time when professional help is on its way.
70% of all bystander CPR is ineffectively performed and this includes both lay and trained rescuers. This is because the rescuer has no way to make clinical determinations as to whether their compressions are actually effective.
To make matters worse, there is a huge differential of force required from victim to victim depending on their build. We can’t impart all of this during training because it introduced complexity, and simplicity is the key.
Clinical feedback provided by a defibrillator during CPR is the solution.
The RD500 defibrillator takes clinical readings during CPR (as opposed to other AEDs that at best give feedback using superficial factors during CPR), and provides the rescuer with feedback based on cardiac output and other clinical factors. This is extremely important to give the rescuer confidence & reassurance.
FastAid Defibrillators available:
-
RD500 (Our recommendation!)
- Semi-automatic defibrillator
- Features unique patient specific CPR feedback which instructs the user to push harder, faster, slower to reassure you that you’re doing it right.
-
RD360
- Fully-automatic defibrillator.
- Provides audio prompts to users and metronome for CPR timing.
-
RD350
- Semi-automatic
- Provides audio prompts to users and metronome for CPR timing.
Looking for more information on our defib and accessory range? View the full range of products here.
We also have a super helpful brochure about SCA and our defib range for you to view and download.
Need help choosing a defib? You can contact us or call 1800 13 12 11 to speak to our sales team!