About Your Heart Attack | Nucleus Health

- If you have recently been treated for a heart attack, a condition caused by a blockage of blood flow to your heart muscle, this video will help you understand the condition and its treatment. Your heart is a muscular organ that pumps blood containing the oxygen and nutrients your body needs. The main pumping chamber of your heart is the left ventricle. When your left ventricle contracts it sends oxygen-rich blood to your body through a large artery called the aorta. Connected to your aorta are small arteries called coronary arteries. Blood flows from your aorta through the coronary arteries to supply your heart muscle with oxygen and nutrients. During your heart attack, blood flow through one of your coronary arteries may have been severely reduced or completely blocked. Your reduced blood flow may have been caused by a buildup of a fatty substance called plaque in your coronary arteries. If this plaque became disrupted, a blood clot might form and severely worsen the narrowing or lead to a sudden complete blockage, stopping blood flow down the artery. A blockage in your coronary arteries prevented the oxygen and nutrients in your blood from reaching the part of your heart supplied by the artery. As a result, heart muscle in that area started to die. Damage to part of your heart muscle is called a heart attack. It's also known as a myocardial infarction, or MI. Your heart Dr. may have recommended a procedure to help open the blockage and improve blood flow to the damaged area. The procedure you had may have been a coronary angioplasty. During a coronary angioplasty, a balloon tipped catheter inflates inside your blocked coronary artery to open it. The procedure may have involved placing a stent to help prop the artery open.This is usually a thin metal mesh that acts as a scaffold.Or you may have had a coronary arterybypass graft, or CABG.CABG is a surgical procedure in which the blocked areasof the coronary arteries are by passedwith veins or other arteries from the body.our heart is an amazing organ it works hard for usevery second of every day delivering blood and oxygen to every cell in our Body but when sudden cardiac arrest strikes our heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops speeding effectively and blood flow stops without any Intervention the brain vital organs and our heart will begin to die beginning cpr is the person's only chance of survival brain damage will start to set in within 4 minutes and after 10 minutes brain damage becomes irreversible the power to save a life is truly in your hands performing cpr accomplishes two critical Things one compressions move oxygenated blood to the brain to keep the brain alive and two compressions keep blood and oxygen moving to the heart muscle itself so that it has the best chance of resuming a normal electrical rhythm after a shock is delivered as you begin compressions you are creating an artificial pump and doing the work of the heart manually with each good effective Compression you are building up pressure in the system which will move blood around the Heart and up to the brain it does take time to get the blood moving with cpr so it is very important to push hard and push fast to build the pressure up which keeps blood going to the brain pushing down at least two inches allows for the heart to be squeezed and blood to move out pushing at a rate of 100 to 120 compressions per minute is necessary to keep blood pumping let's see what happens when we take our hands off the chest blood stops moving to the brain it is for this reason that if you are taking your hands off the chest to deliver breaths or switching rolls it is critical to minimize time off the Chest watch what happens when we don't push deep enough blood does not reach the brain the same is true if we do not push fast Enough watch what happens when we push too fast the heart does not have time to refill with blood therefore not enough blood gets pumped out watch what happens when we don't allow the body to decompress and allow the chest to fully recoil the heart does not have a chance to refill with blood therefore no blood gets pumped out so remember the key purpose of delivering compressions is to keep oxygenated blood moving within the heart and up to the brain to keep the brain alive we need to push hard and push fast in the center of the chest if ribs break that's okay what's not Okay is allowing the brain to die from a lack of oxygen so remember you are their only hope do the best you can and don't give up until medical help arrives or an aed is present you can do it.