About.com First Aid

First Aid Phraseology: Heart Attack

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:14:49 +0000

Heart attack is probably the most misunderstood medical term still regularly used. It represents different things to people with different levels of medical training. The lay public and the media use it interchangeably to mean both cardiac arrest -- which is often mistaken as a diagnosis when it wasn't supposed to be -- and an actual heart attack.

To make it as simple as possible, let me sum up: a heart attack happens when too little oxygen gets to an area of the heart, specifically an area of heart muscle. Eventually, the heart muscle will die -- not all of it, mind you, just the part that wasn't getting enough blood and oxygen. As the heart muscle dies, it gets weaker and can no longer pump blood efficiently. Sometimes during a heart attack the electrical system of the heart will go haywire and cause the heart to quiver uncontrollably, go too slow, go too fast, beat irregularly or malfunction in some other way.

All too often, the term heart attack is associated with sudden death. You can die from a heart attack, but you certainly don't have to. When folks refer to sudden death from a "heart attack" they are usually referring to sudden cardiac arrest, a term covered last month in First Aid Phraseology.

Heart attack is more of a lay term than a medical term. In medical parlance, a heart attack has traditionally been called an actue myocardial infarction (AMI), which refers to the end of the heart attack process. Heart attacks take a few minutes to progress to myocardial infarction and should be diagnosed and treated as quickly as possible. Since myocardial infarction is only part of a heart attack, the newest medical terminology is acute coronary syndrome (ACS), which encompasses the whole process.

Heart attacks have one symptom that is experienced by the majority of victims: pressure in the chest that travels to the left arm and sometimes to the jaw. There are a few other symptoms that can indicate a heart attack:

Shortness of breath
Chest palpitations
Sudden onset of symptoms without exercise or stress

Of all the possible symptoms, however, chest pressure is the one most often described by victims. Heart attacks in women may feel differently than in men.

First Aid Phraseology is a weekly look at the common words and phrases used in first aid and emergency medical services. Have a term you'd like to know more about? Email me and I'll touch on it in a future post.

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First Aid Phraseology: Heart Attack originally appeared on About.com First Aid on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 05:14:49.

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What Do You Think of the New Newsletter?

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:02:13 +0000

About.com is sprucing up the newsletter format a bit, and I'd like to know how you like it. We're cleaning up the colors and adding a few more links to bring you back to the main page. Overall, it's a little prettier but it still has my mug on it, so I apologize for that.

Vote in the poll. Tell us whether you like it, love it or hate it. If you feel strongly enough, tell me why in the comments section below. And, thank you for reading About.com First Aid.

By the way, if you aren't getting the About.com First Aid newsletter, here's your chance. Sign up for the first aid and other About.com newsletters here.

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What Do You Think of the New Newsletter? originally appeared on About.com First Aid on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 00:02:13.

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First Aid Phraseology: Fever

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:11:18 +0000

Fever is both a condition and a symptom. As a condition, it's usually in the name: hay fever, Scarlett fever, Dengue fever, etc. Those conditions have a fever as one of the symptoms, which brings us to the other, more common, use of the term.

Fever is a symptom of a bigger problem. It happens when the body temperature is too high. It's officially a fever when the body temperature reaches 99.6 Fahrenheit or higher.

We all have hot bodies. Yes, that means you, too. When your cells are doing their work, they burn fuel for energy. It's like a car motor. We burn sugar instead of gasoline, but we mix it with oxygen just like a car does and when we burn it, we get heat as well as energy.

A little heat is a good thing. It's like in your car, you use the heat from the motor to warm up the inside. But, just like a car, we can't run too hot. Cars use water in the radiator to keep the temperature from skyrocketing. In the body, we use blood. When we want it to cool off, we flow it close to the surface of the skin -- and adding a little sweat really helps cool things down. Even breathing helps by exhaling warm air and inhaling cooler air.

Your body does a pretty good job of keeping its core body temperature (deep inside) at 98.6, plus or minus 1 degree. When it's cold outside, we conserve heat. When it's hot, we let it go.

Sometimes, the cells in your body get a lot more active than usual. For example, during exercise your body's temperature goes up. When your body is fighting an infection, it uses lots of cells from your immune system that spend most of their days not doing much at all. As those extra cells burn fuel, they create lots of extra heat that your body can't easily get rid of.

All that extra heat makes your temperature go up: that's a fever.

Fevers are divided into low-grade and high-grade; under 101 is low-grade and over 101 is high-grade. The difference helps us decide when to treat a fever.

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First Aid Phraseology: Fever originally appeared on About.com First Aid on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 05:11:18.

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First Aid Phraseology: Shortness of Breath

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:00:27 +0000

Ask the next paramedic you see what type of patient she gets most often and she's likely to say a patient in shortness of breath. She might describe it differently, however.

Shortness of breath has many names: dyspnea, respiratory distress, respiratory failure, trouble breathing, unable to breathe, difficulty breathing...

...the list goes on.

First Aid Phraseology: Shortness of Breath originally appeared on About.com First Aid on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 05:00:27.

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Did You Hear the One About the Guy Saved by an iPhone?

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:17:14 +0000

Dan Woolley, an American filmmaker, was trapped in the collapsed Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and has been widely reported as crediting his iPhone with saving his life.

Want to bandage your head with your sock? There's an app for that.

First off, let me point out that it's wonderful this guy made it out alive. He's extremely unlucky to be in Haiti, staying in a building not built to withstand an earthquake, at the precise moment an earthquake strikes. Good for him that he's OK.

Did You Hear the One About the Guy Saved by an iPhone? originally appeared on About.com First Aid on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 15:17:14.

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What Haiti can Learn from Katrina

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:50:17 +0000

When I went to help out after hurricane Katrina, I ended up split off from the rest of my group. I stayed in southern Mississippi while everyone else went to New Orleans.

I had a very different experience than they did.

Ambulance convoy in Mississippi after hurricane Katrina
(c) Rod Brouhard

In Louisiana, resources were as scarce as they were in Mississippi. Nobody had electricity. Nobody had clean water. Nobody had fresh food. Folks all along the Gulf Coast were without shelter.

What Haiti can Learn from Katrina originally appeared on About.com First Aid on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 19:50:17.

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First Aid Phraseology: First Aid

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 05:00:47 +0000

It's time to get down to brass tacks. This entire site is dedicated to first aid and "first aid" is one of those terms thrown around like everyone out there knows what you're talking about.

Do they?

First aid is a double-duty term. It requires context to really understand what is being talked about since first aid can be the lowliest bit of medical minutia or a truly life-saving intervention.

First Aid Phraseology: First Aid originally appeared on About.com First Aid on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 05:00:47.

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First Aid Phraseology: Fracture or a Break?

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:00:20 +0000

Ever showed up to work with a plaster cast on your arm? Twenty bucks says one of the first things your coworkers asked was whether you broke it or if it was "just a fracture."

Huh? What's the difference?

Somewhere in the land of medical terminology two terms that mean the same thing took different paths in the minds of the lay public. Fracture became a fancy medical term used to describe the slightest of cracks in otherwise healthy bones, less than an emergency and not nearly as bad as a full-blown, honest-to-goodness broken bone.

First Aid Phraseology: Fracture or a Break? originally appeared on About.com First Aid on Monday, January 11th, 2010 at 05:00:20.

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It's Cold and There's that Pesky Carbon Monoxide

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:23:26 +0000

It's cold. It's snowing. The power's out. How are you going to get lights and heat?

Answer: generators and burning stuff, both of which can release carbon monoxide.

Carbon monoxide poisoning is much more common in the winter when cold weather leads to more furnaces and fireplaces being used. The crazy cold weather we've had this year makes the issue even more dire.

There are a few absolute rules to staying warm and bright during winter storms and cold snaps:

NEVER run a generator indoors without proper ventilation
NEVER cook or light a fire on an outdoor grill indoors
NEVER leave a candle burning unattended
ALWAYS keep a flashlight handy so you don't have to burn candles for light

You also need to know the signs and symptoms for carbon monoxide poisoning to make sure you can recognize if it happens:

It's Cold and There's that Pesky Carbon Monoxide originally appeared on About.com First Aid on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 20:23:26.

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First Aid Phraseology: Cardiac Arrest

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:00:13 +0000

Cardiac arrest is what happens when your heart stops pumping blood. Cardiac arrest is pretty misunderstood because it's both a medical condition and a sign of other medical conditions. On top of that, it's the end of every disease. Eventually, the heart always stops in death, and when the heart stops, it's cardiac arrest.

First Aid Phraseology: Cardiac Arrest originally appeared on About.com First Aid on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 05:00:13.

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