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Hands-on Help for Heart Health Emergencies
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What to do in a heart-health emergency
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By Sid Kirchheimer
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MediZine's Healthy Living Fall 2009
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What would you do if someone near you seemed to be having a heart attack? Giving CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) may seem daunting, but the American Heart Association (AHA) says simply doing chest compressions, without mouth-to-mouth breathing, may save an adult until help gets there. The AHA’s Hands-Only CPR guidelines: call 911; put the victim on the floor face up; place one hand on top of the other in the middle of the victim’s chest; press hard and fast on the chest, depressing it about 2 inches, roughly 100 times a minute. Continue until paramedics arrive. Note: Kids and drowning victims still need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
| Think the CPR guidelines above might be
hard to remember during a crisis? Try memorizing these two steps
instead. 1) Call 911. 2) Push hard and fast in the center of the chest. |
Download "Act in Time to Heart Attack Signs," from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
The worse a man’s oral health, the greater his risk of heart disease. That’s the conclusion of a study that tracked 1,203 men for up to 35 years. All were young and healthy at the start, but as they aged, those who developed severe gum disease were twice as likely to also have heart disease as those with healthy or less damaged gums. The theory: Bacteria in the mouth travels through the bloodstream and causes inflammatory responses that lead to heart and blood vessel damage.
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