Guide to Heart Disease

When you’re with someone who is having a heart attack for the first time, it’s important to pay attention to and understand all the symptoms clearly when recognizing a heart attack. Give the person an aspirin or a disprin, and get him or her to a cardiac centre immediately. If you’re with an established cardiac patient, give him or her nitroglycerine tablet and rush him or her to the nearest heart centre.
However, in the case of a first-time heart attack, take only an aspirin or a disprin and not a nitroglycerine tablet like sorbitrate which angina patients take. If it’s a first heart attack, taking a nitroglycerine tablet may worsen the patient’s condition and aggravate the heart attack.
EMERGENCY LIFE SUPPORT CPR (CARDIO PULMONARY RESUSCITATION)
1. Open the airway — Lift the chin with one hand and push down on the forehead with the other hand to tilt the head back.
2. Breathing — If the person is not breathing, give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Keep the head tilted, pinch the nose shut, and place your mouth over the patient’s mouth so no air can escape. Give two quick breaths into the mouth.
3. Check pulse — Place your hand on the person’s carotid artery (next to the Adam’s apple on the neck) and check for a pulse. If there is no pulse, begin chest compressions.
4. Chest compressions — Kneel beside the person’s chest. Find the sternum, the breastbone where both sides of the ribcage meet, and place your hands as shown. Bring your shoulders over the person’s chest, keeping your arms straight. Press down on the sternum about one to two inches. Then relax the sternum and let the chest rise back to its normal position. But don’t remove your hands from the chest. Give 15 such compressions for every two breaths you give. You must give 80-100 chest compressions per minute.

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