Sudden cardiac arrest is an emergency in which your heart suddenly stops beating. An electrical issue makes your heart stop pumping blood. This leaves your cells unable to receive the oxygen they need. Because of the lack of oxygen to your cells, sudden cardiac arrest can turn fatal in just minutes.
Coronary artery disease is the most common cause of sudden cardiac death, accounting for up to 80% of all cases. Cardiomyopathies and genetic channelopathies account for the remaining causes. The most common causes of non-ischemic sudden cardiac death are cardiomyopathy related to obesity, alcoholism, and fibrosis.
Causes of sudden death
The most common cause of sudden cardiac death is ventricular fibrillation, which is a kind of arrhythmia that causes the heart muscle to be unable to contract as usual. This situation makes regular heartbeats impossible, consequently preventing the pumping of blood throughout the body.
Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is a condition in which the heart suddenly stops beating. When that happens, blood stops flowing to the brain and other vital organs. If it is not treated, SCA usually causes death within minutes. But quick treatment with a defibrillator may be lifesaving.
The most common cause of sudden death in young adult death was ischemic heart disease (n = 39, 59%), followed by dissecting aortic aneurysm (n = 7, 10.6%), cardiac valvular disease (n = 5, 7.6%), congenital heart disease (n = 3, 4.5%), cardiac conduction system abnormalities (n = 1, 1.5%), cardiomyopathy (n = 1, 1.5%), ...
Their study made the surprising discovery that about half of patients who have a sudden cardiac arrest first experience symptoms like intermittent chest pain and pressure, shortness of breath, palpitations, or ongoing flu-like symptoms such as nausea and abdominal and back pain.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women. This is the case in the U.S. and worldwide. More than half of all people who die due to heart disease are men. Medical professionals use the term heart disease to describe several conditions.
Sudden cardiac death is the swift and unexpected ending of all heart activity. Breathing and blood flow stop right away. Within seconds, the person becomes unconscious and dies.
1. : unexpected death that is instantaneous or occurs within minutes from any cause other than violence. sudden death following coronary occlusion.
Cyanide poisoning causes death in seconds because it break the electron transport chain.
But if it occurred at home, AARP says, call 911, and the police and paramedics will conduct an investigation and make a declaration of death. The medical team will help you decide whether an autopsy is needed by the L.A. County Medical Examiner-Coroner or if you should go ahead and call a funeral home.
What happens when someone dies? In time, the heart stops and they stop breathing. Within a few minutes, their brain stops functioning entirely and their skin starts to cool. At this point, they have died.
Physical signs
Facial muscles may relax and the jaw can drop. Skin can become very pale. Breathing can alternate between loud rasping breaths and quiet breathing. Towards the end, dying people will often only breathe periodically, with an intake of breath followed by no breath for several seconds.
Stress is unlikely to be fatal for most people, but prolonged exposure to stress can lead to mental and physical health problems, including death in severe cases. But dying from stress is unusual and is likely the result of a heart attack or another cardiovascular issue.
Shock and disbelief last longer.
However, sudden deaths do not allow the griever to prepare for the loss, which makes it incredibly difficult to even begin the grieving process. With no time to prepare, shock and disbelief pull you in, keeping you from taking the first step to cope with the loss.
Coping tips
Talk to professionals, family and friends to help gain perspective about the death and decrease feelings of guilt. Become educated about the cause of death. Accept rather than deny your feelings, even unpleasant ones such as anger. Be active in making choices about engaging in activities and rituals.
This deliberate temporary induction of clinical death is called circulatory arrest. It is typically performed by lowering body temperature to between 18 °C and 20 °C (64 and 68 °F) and stopping the heart and lungs. This state is called deep hypothermic circulatory arrest.
Researchers suspect sleep apnea causes abnormal heart rhythms, which lead to sudden cardiac death, for a number of reasons. “Sleep apnea may lower oxygen levels, activate the fight-or-flight response and change pressure in the chest when the upper airway closes, stressing the heart mechanically,” he explains.
Sudden arrhythmic death syndrome is when someone dies suddenly and unexpectedly from a cardiac arrest, but the cause of the cardiac arrest can't be found. A cardiac arrest is when your heart suddenly stops pumping blood around your body. This stops your breathing and starves your brain of oxygen.
Hisashi Ouchi. Radiation sickness is an extraordinarily painful way to go, and while most people remember disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima, the worst nuclear-related death started in the Japanese village of Tōkai. On September 30, 1999, technician Hisashi Ouchi was blasted with an enormous amount of radiation.
Dying in your sleep, also known as nocturnal death, is most often associated with sudden cardiac arrest and the progressive loss of heart function associated with congestive heart failure (CHF). Lung failure and an end-stage or terminal disease are other reasons people may die in their sleep.
Old Age is not a Cause of Death
“Old age” is not truly a cause of death in and of itself. To “die of old age” means that someone has died naturally from an ailment associated with aging. The same usually goes for “dying of natural causes.”