Quirks, Bumps, and Bruises
Take a trip with the Morning JoyRide®️as Candi and Melody discuss the humorous side of real issues facing families today.
Quirks, Bumps, and Bruises
Heart Health Awareness: Prevention, Preparedness, and Community Resources
Our latest episode highlights the vital importance of heart health awareness, especially during American Heart Month. Host Melody welcomes Wendy, Joy FM’s Community Care Specialist, for an insightful conversation with Jennifer Graziano, Senior Community Impact Director at the American Heart Association. Together, they discuss the critical warning signs of heart attacks and strokes—two of the leading causes of death in the U.S.—and the life-saving steps everyone should know, including hands-only CPR and AED usage.
• Importance of American Heart Month
• Disturbing statistics on heart disease mortality
• Gender differences in heart attack symptoms
• Role and effectiveness of hands-only CPR
• Urgency of using AEDs in cardiac emergencies
• Essential health behaviors for heart health
• Encouragement for community-based heart health education
Hi, I'm Melody and I'm Candy and you're listening to Quirks, bumps and Bruises. So, on this episode of Quirks, bumps and Bruises, first of all, I have a guest in here, although she's not a guest because she's a co-worker. Hi guys, it is Wendy Bundy. And Wendy, first of all, give us your title.
Speaker 2:So I am the Community Care Coordinator here at Joy FM. I get to make arrangements for all the events that we go to. I get to love up on our listeners and the main job that I really enjoy doing is what I tell everybody. I get to cry, I get to pray, I get to love and I get to laugh on everybody that I meet.
Speaker 1:So that's the best part. Well, you sounded like you memorized that, but you didn't. I did not. Very good, and probably many of you listening have maybe even talked to Wendy at one time or another, but recently, wendy, you were able to talk to someone from the American Heart Association.
Speaker 2:This is Heart Month right, it is February's Heart Month for American Heart Association.
Speaker 1:And just tell us who it is that you were able to talk to and kind of what that was about, and then we're going to share that interview that you yourself did with her.
Speaker 2:So, yes, we have our show called Community Matters and we talk about things that are going on in our community. So I contacted Miss Jennifer Graziano, who is the Senior Community Impact Director for the American Heart Association of the Triad, and we talked about February being heart month and it is so important for us to know how to recognize signs and symptoms of heart attacks and strokes and how to take care of yourself so that you can avoid those issues if possible. And also, the main thing is, with Jennifer, especially in this role, it was a very personal thing for her when her mother went into sudden cardiac arrest and there was nobody there to help do CPR. So we also go into hands only CPR that anybody can do bystanders. You don't have to be certified. They teach you how to do it. You call 9-1-1 and they also tell you how to do it. One of the things that you are going to hear about is how to do hands-only CPR and that's really, really important. You don't know how many lives that can be saved if you at least just try.
Speaker 1:That's awesome and I know that, if I'm not mistaken and you and Jennifer may get into this but heart attacks, heart issues, is the number one cause of death in women, correct?
Speaker 2:Actually, heart attacks are the number one cause of death in women, correct? Actually, heart attacks are the number one cause of death in the United States, men and women, men and women.
Speaker 1:Wow, and strokes are the fifth, so important information, and so we're going to just play that interview right now for you. Very important y'all. Not only listen to it yourself, share it with your family, your friends and those that you love.
Speaker 2:Here is wendy and jennifer from the american heart association hi, this is wendy, your host for community matters here on joy fm, and today we're going to be talking about some information that could save your life.
Speaker 2:The month of february is american heart month for the american heart association now. Last year marked 100 years of life-saving work for the American Heart Association and they will continue to keep sharing this information to help you enjoy a healthy lifestyle. Now today I'll be talking to Ms Jennifer Graziano, who is the Senior Community Impact Director for the American Heart Association on heart health, and for the next three weekends, we will be sharing information on signs and symptoms of a heart attack or stroke, information on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle and what to do in case of an emergency. Ms Jennifer, we are so grateful and so thankful to have you here today, and I do want to point out that she is the impact director for the local triad, but American Heart Association is nationwide. They have local markets everywhere in your community, so please give them a call, look up their website, which is heartorg oh, how easy to remember that yes, so heartorg and find your local market.
Speaker 2:Get all the information that you need. That we're going to be discussing again, ms Jennifer. Thank you so much for being here thanks for having me, wendy well, first of all, we are going to be talking about some heart health, but I ask everyone I interview, tell us a little bit about yourself, tell us how you got into American Heart Association.
Speaker 3:All right, well again, I'm Jennifer Graziano, the Senior Community Impact Director with the American Heart Association and the Triad Market in North Carolina. That just means I manage community health and clinical programs in my area to drive better health outcomes for folks. This work is really personal to me. National Heart Month is my favorite month of the year. I got into health pretty inspiring way, you would say. I grew up in a household surrounded by cardiovascular disease. I had a grandfather who had several heart attacks, who eventually died from the last heart attack he had, and I lost my mom at 18 to sudden cardiac arrest. That was not immediately witnessed in a household that didn't have someone trained in CPR. So, like I said, it's pretty personal and just kind of what I learned from those experiences was prevention is key and so is preparedness being prepared in an emergency. So naturally this position was a good fit for me and I'm really passionate about these topics we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 2:And I can promise you she has some passion in her voice. I've talked to her over a couple weeks and she really loves and enjoys what she does. We're both all about prevention. We're both all about trying to prevent the sudden cardiac arrest and the heart attacks and the strokes if possible, because the main thing is you just need to know the signs and symptoms you need to have. Cpr is honestly easy to do and we will talk about this later on, in a couple, in a week or two, for right now I did not know this until this morning that heart disease still remains the leading cause of death in the United States.
Speaker 2:I was completely shocked about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's alarming to me and a lot of other folks. About every 34 seconds someone dies of cardiovascular disease. That's about 2,500 people a day, so it's pretty prevalent. Wow, that is a lot. Yeah, and I think what's more important to understand I mean that helps us understand the why, but also making sure we know the warning signs so that ultimately, we could save a life.
Speaker 2:Yes, in my past job as a paramedic, it is really important to be able to pick up some signs and symptoms, and there's so many signs and symptoms of a heart attack. It may be different from one person to the other. One person may have chest pain, one person may have jaw pain. Men and women are different. That's right. Miss Jennifer, can you tell us some of the warning signs of a heart attack that are sometimes typical and maybe can be not so typical?
Speaker 3:Definitely We'll go through what those warning signs are, but ultimately if you or anyone you're with is having these symptoms, the first thing you want to do is call 911. Yes, for a stroke, which we'll jump into, but you want to note the time that those symptoms first appeared, because a first responder may be able to administer a clot-busting drug within those first few hours to really improve your chances of getting better faster. For a heart attack, the most common one, and maybe one listeners are familiar with, is chest pain. That can be sudden and intense, or it can happen slowly, which can be more alarming because you might attribute it to something else. The way you're responding to the lunch you had the physical activity you're doing. So it can be intense or it could be gradual or just kind of feel like mild discomfort.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Your chest could just get a little tight, yeah yeah. So that's kind of more the center of the chest and it can come and go. That's another thing. People might ignore it, because it comes and goes. It can feel like uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain, shortness of breath. You can have that with or without the chest. Discomfort you can have discomfort in other areas of the body like the arms, the back, the neck, the jaw, the stomach. You might break out in a cold sweat, have some nausea or lightheadedness. And now women.
Speaker 2:Yes, women are.
Speaker 3:We're different, that's right. We're different and our brains are wired to think oh, it's nothing, right, we do every time, yep, oh, it's stress, yep. So we're more likely to ignore our symptoms. Women now. They still have the common chest pain that men will have, but they're more likely than men to experience some of those other symptoms, particularly shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting and back or jaw pain.
Speaker 2:I've noticed in my past career that a lot of women had just it was just back pain, mm-hmm, their back was bothering them and they couldn't figure out just sudden.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know how common are we to say it's because I carried my kid around all day yeah, or I did a day's worth of chores and I think our back pain is related to that it is hard to associate back pain with chest pain yeah, so we just want to put these warning signs to memory.
Speaker 2:Yes, the main thing is don't be afraid to call 9-1-1, right, if it's not a heart attack going on, you get the hospital and it was just acid reflux. That's better than waiting around and deciding, oh, I'll go later. And then you have more heart damage, you have more issues and you I'll just be honest you may not be there to make it till later yeah, it is real important to never be afraid to call 911.
Speaker 2:They will come out, they will check you out. I've always told people any type of chest pain, any of these symptoms, they need to go to the hospital, get some blood work done. Just ease their mind. If anything else, ease their mind that is this a heart attack or is this not Right? But at least you know.
Speaker 3:Right. At least you know For sure. And as far as stroke you know that's still really prevalent in the United. States. It's the fifth leading cause of death, according to the American Association.
Speaker 2:Wow, I did not know that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so stroke. If we're thinking about how to recognize, we want to think about the acronym FAST. F-a-s-t. F stands for face drooping. You might have some numbness or weakness to the face. If you're with someone, if you're a witness to someone having a stroke, ask them to smile. Does one side of the face droop or is it numb? The A in FAST stands for arm weakness. Ask the person to raise both arms. Is one arm weak or numb? Does one arm drift downward? So that weakness is a sign of a stroke, especially on one side of the body.
Speaker 3:Speech difficulty. So ask a person to repeat a simple sentence. Just ask them. The sky is blue. If they're unable to speak or if they're hard to understand, you know that would be a warning sign. And then the T in FAST is time to call 911. If a person shows any of these symptoms, even if the symptoms go away, call 911 and get them to the hospital immediately. So we're looking for that sudden numbness or weakness of the face or the arms or the legs, confusion, trouble speaking, trouble seeing, sudden trouble walking or loss of balance and sometimes severe headache with no known cause. So that's that acronym you want to memorize so that you can spot it quickly and act fast, act fast.
Speaker 2:I will tell you that I had a gentleman who he only experienced speech issues. He couldn't talk. Yeah, he was talking to his wife and then he just he stopped talking. He was having a stroke. It kind of depends on where you have it in the brain, right, but a lot of times you are going to have the fast symptoms and as soon as you recognize it, call 9-1-1. If you see, if you or a loved one are having any of these warning symptoms, any of these problems I cannot stress it enough and I know Ms Jennifer cannot stress it enough Please call 911.
Speaker 3:That's right. Do not delay getting the care you need so that you can walk out of the hospital the same person you were going into it, with the same lifestyle and the same quality of life.
Speaker 2:I know that we gave you a lot of information. There were a lot of symptoms that were present that we talked about Heart attack symptoms, stroke symptoms. I understand that's just a lot of information. So I encourage you to go online to heartorg wwwheartorg and learn more.
Speaker 3:We are a wealth of resources. Feel free to check us out. We've got a search bar. If it's heart attack, you want to learn more about stroke nutrition? Anything AFib, we got you covered.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they do have a lot of stuff on their website. We could have way more than four segments if we went over everything on their website. The most important ones are the heart attack and stroke symptoms and other things that we'll be talking about in the next coming weeks. I do encourage you to go online, check everything out, have these memorized, even if it's just one or two things, and again, please call 9-1-1. With any sign or symptom of anything, please call 9-1-1. They will be happy to come out and check you out and take care of you. So, ms Jennifer, did we miss anything? That covers it?
Speaker 3:And just we'll get a chance to go into this in more detail but know your health history. Know your family history. Know your numbers If it's been a while since you've seen your doctor go and get your annual physical. Know your baseline. Know your normal, so that when something abnormal like perhaps warning signs of a heart attack or stroke show up, you know that this isn't something you regularly deal with.
Speaker 2:That is something you do need to know. That is important. It's important to also know your medications, as well.
Speaker 2:Have them out, have them where the medics can come in and see them, have everything there and, like she said, know your numbers, know what's normal. That's all really good information to have when you call 911. I hope you learned a lot today. This subject is very near and dear to my heart, to me and to Ms Jennifer. We just really want to get this information out there and get you to understand that there are ways. It may be the leading cause of death, but there are ways that you can prevent that and I cannot get over that stroke was the fifth leading cause of death. There's a ways if you recognize the symptoms right away, there are ways that they can reverse the symptoms. There are ways that they can minimize the symptoms. So that is why it is so important to know the signs and symptoms of a heart attack and a stroke. Tell us how we can be a little heart healthy. What can we do?
Speaker 3:Oh, this is such a fun topic for me and you know this is this is really personal because I think prevention is so, so important. So the American Heart Association kind of categorizes these eight most important things, we call them life's essential eight and these are kind of the key measures for improving and maintaining good cardiovascular health. So better cardiovascular health helps lower the risk that's the goal here Prevent and lower the risk for heart disease, stroke and any other major health problems. So we're going to talk about these eight things in two groups. We're going to talk about our health behaviors and our health factors. So for our health behaviors, so think about the things you can control, the things you can change, that's eating better, being more active, quitting tobacco and getting healthy sleep. And then our health factors are managing your weight, control cholesterol, manage blood sugar and manage blood pressure. Should we?
Speaker 2:jump into nutrition first. I'm sitting here thinking I need to do a little bit better with my health. Some of these behaviors I'm like, yep, that's me. Factors yep, that's me. Yeah, tell us some ways that we can eat a little better. And I need to make sure that I do this.
Speaker 3:So we just want to think about making smart choices and swaps to build an overall healthy eating style right? The things we do more often matter a lot more than the things we do on occasion. We want to watch our calories and watch our portions, make sure they're appropriate for our age and our size and our height.
Speaker 2:So in other words, we can't fill the plate up.
Speaker 3:It depends, but let's think about the things we can maybe add more of to our eating pattern. Okay, can?
Speaker 2:we fill the plate up with a lot of salad, but not all the potato salad and mac and cheese.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the distribution of the foods we eat definitely have an impact on or over our health. We want to think about adding more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, legumes, nuts, plant-based proteins, lean animal proteins, skinless poultry, fish, seafood. Those are the things we want to emphasize the most. Now, on the flip side, what are the things to maybe limit or avoid? Oh, this is going to be the hard part, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm already cringing.
Speaker 3:It is for some people, but it can also be the simplest place to start for a lot of folks. Think about limiting our sweetened drinks, alcohol, sodium, red and processed meats, refined carbohydrates, maybe our full fat dairy. We can reduce highly processed foods and some tropical oils like coconut and palm oil. And then also pretty strictly avoid trans fat and partially hydrogenated oils. Those are mostly found in, like your commercial baked goods and your fried foods.
Speaker 2:All the good food. It's okay, because I want to live a little bit longer. I want to do a lot more things. God has a plan for me. I can't do it if I'm not going to eat right and I'm going to make myself sick. So I'm good with enjoying some extra vegetables, and I already like fish. There you go. So I'm already one step ahead. I gave up my sodas for a year. I'm done with them. I don't do them anymore. I'm getting there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that's such a key thing to remember Small changes over time really make big impact. So finding what is that thing that's achievable probably not going to overhaul your whole diet in a day and sustain it but if gradually, over time, you eliminated sugar, sweet and sodas and then, after you felt like you were sustaining that well, you swapped out some of your protein food choices or some of your snack choices for fruits and vegetables, it really makes a big impact over time.
Speaker 2:I think if you find something that you really like and try some of these things, it's like, wow, these taste really good. Yeah, you never know. And there's so many heart healthy ways to cook these things and you can try different recipes, so there's all kinds of ways that you can take all of these and try to live a little bit healthier and like it enjoyable yeah, make it enjoyable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, have a little fun time when you're cooking. Just have a little bit of fun time of like cooking together, chopping the vegetables together, kind of making it like, even with your children. Make it like a little game.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. The American Heart Association has endless healthy recipes at heartorg, so check that out too if you need more recipes. There's also great information on how to read and understand our food labels so that we can make healthier choices. We can help compare product to product and maybe choose products that have lower amounts of sodium, saturated fat and added sugar, so have lower amounts of sodium, saturated fat and added sugar. So getting an understanding of what that food label means and how to make smart consumer choices is also really key to driving our health outcomes. So read those labels.
Speaker 2:Yes, your life depends on it. It could I mean seriously.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So then that leads us to another key part of a healthy heart is being physically active and kind of what some guidelines are around that.
Speaker 2:See, that's my problem I have no energy, but I would have energy if I would get more active. I need to get active is what I need to do.
Speaker 3:Action precedes motivation. Yeah, there you go, I just need.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to get the energy if I get up and just do things. That's going to give me the energy to keep going.
Speaker 3:And that goes back to that kind of small, attainable goal right. So maybe it is a 10 minute lunch break that over time you can build the intensity or the duration of how long you walk for.
Speaker 2:I mean we can walk to the post office and back from work. Yeah, that's just maybe a 10 minute walk.
Speaker 3:There from work. Yeah, that's just maybe a 10 minute walk. There you go when you want to aim for about two and a half hours of moderate physical activity a week, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity. For kids that should be 60 minutes a day. So this I think we get really caught up about. It has to be at a gym or it has to be, so technical.
Speaker 3:It doesn't Just move your body to the point where your heartbeat elevates and your breathing rate elevates, but you can still carry a conversation if you needed to. That's kind of what we're looking for with moderate physical activity. So about two and a half hours a week and, like I said, start small and over time, increase your activity, increase your intensity, try new things. Just get your heart pumping. It's so important.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I do now well, I do it every time is when I'm brushing my teeth, I do squats, Love that. And when I'm waiting at the microwave, I, instead of going to sit back down in my chair, I am doing marches like marching in place. That's perfect. I'm doing things like that. I might be cleaning the kitchen table off or just something that I'm still active. I'm not just sitting on the chair waiting for my food to get done, or even when it's in an oven, I'm still making myself do stuff because my thought process is I'm up already.
Speaker 2:I don't want to go get comfortable and then turn around in like 30 minutes and I have to get back up again. Might as well. Just stay active. You get too comfortable and you don't get up. Period. I've been there. There are way too many shows out there that you can binge watch. So even if you binge watch shows, get up between episodes there. You go, get up between episodes and move, do a little march, do a little jog in place, do something like she's saying the little things and we can think of it as a spectrum right.
Speaker 3:On one end we have increasing movement throughout the day, so things like marching in place while the microwave is running, increasing physical activity. So maybe that's parking further away or taking the stairs or instead of the elevator, and then like more organized exercise. So all along the spectrum is great to think about getting towards that. Two and a half hours minimum per week.
Speaker 2:Small steps can lead to bigger steps, absolutely, and that goes with food, your food choices and what you're limiting and exercise.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. It's very interesting to see the secular effect of when I eat better, I feel more energized to move more. Yes, when I move more, I feel more inspired to make better food choices. When I sleep better, I get more energy to go to the gym or whatever it is, so that kind of leads us to healthy sleep.
Speaker 2:That's a struggle for some people, yes, truly. That's truly a struggle for some people. It is yes, truly.
Speaker 3:That's truly a struggle. For some people it is, and as best as we can we are adults want to aim for seven to nine hours of sleep each night. Adequate sleep promotes healing. Improved brain function reduces our risk for cardiovascular disease, so something like blood pressure or even diabetes. Limiting screen time before bed can really help. Also, having a consistent bedtime and wake time every day. That means, regardless of if it's a weekday or if it's a weekend, we go to bed and we wake up at the same time every day. Being physically active, having healthy coping skills for stress that's pretty important, that's a challenge.
Speaker 2:It is Everybody's stressed. It can be one little thing or one huge thing. Stress is always going to be around, so we do need to figure out ways to cope with stress, and one of them is exercise.
Speaker 3:That's a great one, Again, thinking about preventing a heart attack, preventing cardiovascular disease. You know we've talked about nutrition, physical activity, sleep habits and then another really key preventable factor is tobacco use. The key for quitting tobacco that includes cigarettes, e-cigarettes, vaping, any nicotine products is make a plan.
Speaker 2:Yep Got to get a mindset.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Make a plan, set a quit date within the next seven days, and there's steps to kind of do this, to set you up for success. We want to. Number one set a quit date within the next seven days and there's steps to kind of to this to set you up for success. We want to. Number one set a quit date within the next seven days. Number two choose a method, whether it's cold turkey or gradually.
Speaker 2:I had a friend who did cold turkey and everybody was like this ain't gonna work for you, this ain't gonna work. He had three rough days but then after that he hadn't touched a tobacco product since he has been like tobacco free for over 40 years oh my goodness.
Speaker 2:And the reducing risk is so key there I bet he saw his blood pressure improve and so many things improve he actually said that he was actually able to breathe a little better, like take deeper breaths. He could do a little bit more walking without being out of breath.
Speaker 3:So it's the trickle effect right, yes. So one healthy habit leading to another one?
Speaker 2:Yes, but if you can't quit cold turkey, you can quit gradually. There are, I know, people who have quit gradually and have been successful.
Speaker 3:And that leads us to kind of point number four, which is decide. Decide if you need help from a healthcare professional, nicotine replacement or medications to help you quit. And then, number five, prepare for your quit date. How are you going to cope with cravings? How are you going to cope with urges? Who are the people in your support system that need to know that you're trying to quit and can support you? And then, lastly, quit on your quit date. Just stop right then and there. Yeah, with your plan, with your people, with all the preparing you've done to help you be successful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just hey, pick a date and you're done, we're done. Yeah, my friend, I was one of his people, and when he would like crave some tobacco and I'd be like, come on, let's go for a walk, I would direct his mindset to something else. Distraction, distract him. Yes, I would distract him. A lot of times we'd go for a walk. Now it was a walk around a parking lot, but we still went for a walk and by the time we were done and we had our little talk about whatever, he was good to go.
Speaker 3:And think about you know that could have been a, a trigger he was having or an urge and how just those simple kind of really evidence-based strategies go a long way when you have the support in place. So again, thinking about, when we think about life's essential eight. The first part of it is those health behaviors, those things we kind of have control over Eating well, moving our bodies, sleeping, getting adequate sleep and quitting tobacco. And then the other half of it really is those health getting adequate sleep and quitting tobacco. And then the other half of it really is those health factors. So managing your weight, controlling cholesterol, managing your blood sugar and managing your blood pressure this is a conversation with you and your healthcare provider.
Speaker 3:Yes, ideally we're looking for a BMI under 25 to manage weight. We're looking for certain total cholesterol and LDL or bad cholesterol. We're looking for a goal blood sugar. We're looking for a goal blood pressure and there's general recommendations out there. We're not going to go into that today because those things are so individualized and the key here is have a plan to what those numbers should be with your healthcare provider, so that means you see them at a minimum yearly.
Speaker 2:That's important because you can eat, you can eat healthy, you can exercise, you can do all kinds of these things and you can still have high blood pressure. Yeah, it can be through genetic factors, something you can't even control. High cholesterol can be a genetic thing that you may not be able to control unless you talk to your doctor. You may have to get on meds. At least when you go see your doctor, you know your numbers, you know what you have to work on. He's there to hopefully he's there to encourage you to do better for your health, yeah, and it's just be.
Speaker 3:Think of it as just a teammate on your health journey. You know you're doing your part with your nutrition and your physical activity and they're doing their part with adjusting your medications as needed, ordering certain labs that you might need because of your own individual risk and health history.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and your doctors have resources that they can send you to. They can send you to a nutritionist.
Speaker 3:If you need to get specialty care from, like an endocrinologist or a cardiologist, you know someone who can look at it through their specialty lens. So just keep those things in mind when we talk about preventing cardiovascular disease our behaviors and our health factors.
Speaker 2:So, jennifer, can you tell us where we can go to get that information?
Speaker 3:Yes, you can go to wwwheartorg slash life's eight to learn more about Life's Essentials Eight. We even have Life Essentials 8 for kids oh cool. And a little quiz you can do to figure out what your heart score is and get some personalized advice based on your own health behaviors and health factors.
Speaker 2:And don't forget that at wwwheartorg you can get some of those recipes. I looked up some of those recipes and they sound really delicious.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you can get all this information on their website.
Speaker 3:Yep, that's wwwheartorg.
Speaker 2:February is heart health month for the American Heart Association, and we just want you to know the signs and symptoms of heart attack and stroke so you can get some help right away. We want you to learn how to live a healthy lifestyle, do some exercise, eat a little better and avoid certain things. We want you to do all this to hopefully help you to have a healthier lifestyle, to also not have you suffer a sudden cardiac arrest or suffer a heart attack or stroke. Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death, so I just wanted to let you listeners know today that this may be a sensitive subject to some people.
Speaker 2:We are going to be talking about sudden cardiac arrest that can lead to death. So we understand that some people may not want to hear this and that is why I'm letting you know ahead of time, just in case. So I hope you can listen and hope you can understand, so that you know, in the possibility of something happens in the future, that there may be something that someone can do. So today we're going to go over what to do when someone you love, or maybe a bystander, suffers from a cardiac emergency, and why it is so important for that early and quick intervention. Explain sudden cardiac arrest to us.
Speaker 3:Yes. So for National Heart Month in February, we're continuing our heart series and today we're talking about sudden cardiac arrest. This is different than a heart attack, which is more of a blockage, or maybe think of it as a plumbing issue. Sudden cardiac arrest is more of an electrical failure in the heart that causes an irregular heartbeat. So then the heart can't pump blood to the brain, the lungs and other organs and this causes a person to lose consciousness and a pulse and the person can die if they do not receive help immediately. So if you see a teen or adult collapse, immediately call 911 and start hands-only CPR if you've identified that that person is not conscious or responsive.
Speaker 2:You talked about hands-only CPR. How do they learn how to do that?
Speaker 3:So hands-only CPR is exactly how it sounds. It's doing the chest compressions only without breaths, and it's very effective. According to the American Heart Association, about 90% of people who suffer a cardiac arrest outside of the hospital they die.
Speaker 3:And hands-only CPR can double or triple a person's chance of survival, so that's why we want to do it immediately. But unfortunately, what we're seeing nationwide is only about 40% of people who experience a cardiac arrest receive the immediate help they need before professional help arrives. Think about that Four out of 10 people 40% are not getting the immediate help they need.
Speaker 2:Why do you think this is? Do you think people? Just don't understand how to do it Do. They just are kind of scared to do it Fear is a big factor.
Speaker 3:So in a nationwide online survey that the American Heart Association did, people commented on why they didn't perform CPR on someone in cardiac arrest despite having the opportunity to do so, and the answers were kind of alarming. One they were afraid of legal ramifications, afraid they might hurt the person, felt cpr was too complicated, didn't feel confident performing the steps, so maybe they've never had any training whatsoever on cpr and they didn't want to give the rescue breath. So that's why the american heart association is on this mission to create what we call a nation of lifesavers and that's making sure at least one person in every household knows how to perform hands-only CPR. And that's step one calling 911. And step two pushing hard and fast in the center of the chest.
Speaker 2:I will also like to throw in I used to be a CPR instructor that they offer classes that you can take that are more in-depth and explain a whole lot more and can show you a lot more things. But until you take those classes, or if you don't have an opportunity this right here is so easy to do Call 911 and push hard and fast in the center of the chest.
Speaker 3:Yes, and that's at 100 to 120 beats per minute.
Speaker 3:You can go to wwwheartorg slash CPR and watch some videos on how to do it, and we also have a great playlist of songs that are the same beat as the CPR tempo, so that you kind of have a reference point if you are ever in a situation where you're doing chest compressions on someone who's unconscious and also a telecommunicator when you're on the phone with 911, they'll be able to coach you in the steps to do hands-only CPR and probably encourage you to count out loud so we know you're doing it at the correct tempo. But Wendy makes a super important point is yes, it's great to be certified in CPR if that's something required for your job or whatever, or just something you want to do, but you do not have to be certified in CPR to try and save a life, and I also encourage children.
Speaker 2:people think children can't do a whole lot of things, but even an eight-year-old can push hard and fast on a chest.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so if you need to alternate if you're in a situation where you have a long response time from EMS, which is possible. Right, it's an unfortunate reality we face. Having someone to alternate doing chest compressions is great. Or even a child can have a role in calling 911. Exactly. Maybe they can share their address, maybe they can share points on how to find the victim. Like we're in the backyard I'll meet you at the front Everyone can kind of play the role, and we just hope that this is a skill you never have to use, but know that it's so important to learn in case you're ever in this situation.
Speaker 3:Sudden cardiac arrest does not discriminate If you are young, old, black, white, whatever it can affect anyone at any time and anywhere. Anywhere. Yeah and that's a good point to mention is 70% of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happen at home. I don't know about you, Wendy, but when I think about who's in my home, I'm saving the life of someone I love deeply.
Speaker 3:Exactly that could be my husband or my daughter or a parent or a child or a sibling. So that's why we want to make sure that at least one person in every household knows how to perform at least hands-only CPR, and then that kind of gets us into. Well, what about AEDs? Right, If it's not at home, if it's in a public place?
Speaker 2:That is very important. I do want to point out something I think is kind of important. If you're by yourself and you witness a cardiac arrest in your home, your loved one, bystander, friend, neighbor, call 9-1-1, put the phone on speaker, set it beside you, yes, and do the chest compressions yep, it can be done. In my household we had a plan. I knew who can call 9-1-1 and who couldn't. You know, with my children one talked really fast yeah, but but have a plan, have a plan of who can call who can do the chest compressions if you, if you absolutely physically cannot. And have a plan. Have the medications ready, have their history ready, have all that stuff ready so as soon as the medics get there, they can take over and get all the information they need and get them on the road.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And if you ever get a chance whether it's through work or church or your personal clubs or hobbies to get your hands on a practice mannequin, reach out to your local American Heart Association and see if that's something they can do. Do a demonstration they can do. Do a demonstration. If, for some reason, you're just looking for education and demonstrations versus being certified in CPR, that's something that the American Heart Association can provide. So work with your local market to see if that's something they could do Our church.
Speaker 2:One good idea is we had several people at our church to take a CPR class on a Saturday. It's four hours, it don't take you long and, again, you do not have to be certified. I'm going to stress that. But if you want to be, if you want to learn more and understand more of how it works, we had about 15 people they did. It's a class on Saturday, it took four hours, and so now we have 15 people in our church that know how to do CPR and know how to do take care of someone in an emergency.
Speaker 3:And that goes to community preparedness, right, that goes into creating a culture where my town, my municipality, my congregation, whatever it is, is prepared to act in an emergency. So having something like a cardiac emergency response plan that maybe involves certain team members from that organization who are trained in hand-only CPR, who have a written plan. Where's the AED? Where's it located? Is it marked? Is it public, as opposed to behind a locked door where you can't access it and just kind of drive home the point that AEDs are meant for people like me and you to be able to use.
Speaker 3:They're really simple, they're meant for the general public, they're not meant just for a healthcare professional. So an AED is a automated external defibrillator and it delivers a electric shock through the chest to the heart when it detects an abnormal rhythm and then it changes that rhythm back to normal, and that's a super important part of saving someone's life during a cardiac arrest. So if you are in a place where there is an AED, you want to do CPR combined with using an AED to provide the best chance of survival, and the AED tells you exactly how to use it.
Speaker 2:It prompts you. All you have to do is hit the button to turn it on and it tells you every single step that you need to do. We actually we have one in our church. We actually had a cardiac event to happen in our church several years ago, when we did not have an AED, but people trained in CPR at that time. She is still here with us today. Because of that, we have an AED now.
Speaker 2:We have it right there. It's between the bathrooms. Right there, everybody knows where it is and you just you run and get it and use it, turn it on and go from there.
Speaker 3:And that's so important to note is that it's public, yes, and it's available, and it's meant for any bystander to grab right. We want to create that norm that the business owner has to be the one to grab it, or the health ministry council, or the nurse, or whoever it's meant for any general public person. Yes, and like Wendy said, we want to place any fear around it. It's not going to deliver a shock if one's not needed. Right so it is that machine's job to do the detecting and do the decision making.
Speaker 2:It is. It takes away all the guesswork. There's no guesswork. You just, I promise you. You turn it on. You listen to the steps. It tells you where to place the pads that you're going to need. It tells you where to place those. It tells you how to place those. It knows when to give a shock or not and it'll say whether shock advised or shock not advised. And it'll say whether shock advised or shock not advised. And if it is a shock advised, then you click the button.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah. So super simple. We want to get people, you know one getting in a mindset of locating it when they're out in public. I mean, I work for the American. Heart. Association. So it's like second nature for me to go to the Children's Museum and be like, oh, there's the AED Good.
Speaker 2:One of their goals is to get AEDs everywhere.
Speaker 3:by the way, yes yes, and you know, even outdoors, right? Yes, If your church closes and locks its doors at, let's say, 5 pm and someone's on the soccer field or the playground and has a cardiac arrest, you're missing a chance to save a life. So that's a call to action. To keep in mind is what's the best placement option for your AED Mm keep in mind is what's the best placement option for your.
Speaker 3:AED. Is there a maintenance log on it, because those pads expire? They do expire. They need to be replaced. Yes, so who's responsible for maintaining that? Have you done a drill? Have you coordinated with your local county EMS? And said hey, we need to practice this.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Because I guarantee it's going to be a hot mess the first time you do it, because I've been a part of drills so you kind of want to work those kinks out and getting hands on a practice mannequin getting hands on a like training AED is really helpful and to making sure the process is smooth and effective and life-saving.
Speaker 2:I also want to point out that this is AEDs are very important to grab and use, but do not forget to call 9-1-1. That's right, there is always somebody. You need to look at them and say you need to call 9-1-1, because everybody's running around and you think someone's calling 9-1-1 but they're not. But somebody else may be, but they're not, so nobody's calling 9-1-1. Please make sure you look at one person directly, have it set up and say you call 911 yeah, or say you and the red shirt with the black glasses exactly 911 yes specific instructions, so no one's wondering who's the one going to call 911.
Speaker 2:So that's a good idea, never, never thought about that yeah, and again, this is.
Speaker 3:I want to also drive home that this applies to teens and adults. Children reasons they go into sudden cardiac arrest is more respiratory related, and children typically need the rescue breaths.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:So this applies to teens and adults. Again, step one call 911. Step two push hard and fast in the center of the chest until help arrives and those professionals take over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they do have. This is for children and teens and adults. They have some specifically for infants because the pads are smaller and they go in different places it goes in the front of the chest and on the back, so it's a little bit different with an infant. If you're capable, if you're able like your church I'm thinking of churches If you're capable of having both of them, you can have the one for the infant in the nursery and it's like right there, yeah, and it's the same concept. You get it, you turn it on and there you go.
Speaker 3:Definitely. And that's like what's the call to action in all of this right, right? So what are some things your church, your business, your household, whatever can do to create this culture of preparedness? Or, you know, maybe you're just a lifesaver in waiting, you know, and that's? Does your organization have an AED? Is it accessible and properly maintained? Do you at a minimum know hands-only CPR? Or are you someone who needs to be certified in CPR and take a local class or something how to identify a cardiac emergency and how to respond quickly? Because that's what matters most If we're going to change that. Only 10% survive. We got to act fast and we got to act correctly and we have to make it a community thing.
Speaker 3:Exactly has to be a bigger issue.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yes, I would like to point out that we want it to work. I have seen it where it worked right away, but sometimes it may not. At least you know you tried. At least you know you got in there and you did what you can do, and that's the best thing. That's because you don't know. If you don't try, you don't know how the outcome is going to be. So, that one split decision of yes or no, whether or not I should do this, could be whether or not they survive or not.
Speaker 3:And that's where a 911 telecommunicator can give you some guidance on how you should respond in this situation.
Speaker 2:They won't leave you hanging. They will be with you every step of the way. They tell you everything that you need to do. They keep you calm, because in some points, it's hard to stay calm in those situations. Yeah, so they're your calming voice. That's why it's so important to call 9-1-1 very first thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Let let the professionals do their job. But also, you know, if you are an organization like a church, practice it. Yes, have a cardiac emergency response plan. I did not even think about that, do some drills.
Speaker 3:Yes, you know that's something your local American Heart Association market can help you do. If you have an AED, create that cardiac emergency response plan. Help you organize a drill so that you feel confident to act in an emergency. And I'd also like to note churches aren't just places of worship. They can be polling sites, that's true. They can have athletic events. Yes, they can have other community events like food pantries that bring in other community members. So you're looking out for the whole community.
Speaker 2:You're not just getting it for your congregation. You can be getting it for anyone that is using your church at that time. Absolutely. Just remember CPR can double or triple a person's chance of survival. That's just getting in there. And again, just the two-step call 911 and push hard and fast in the center of the chest. That's still better than not knowing what to do and not doing anything.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and to learn more information you can go to wwwheartorg slash CPR to watch some tutorials and videos, learn how to do hands-only CPR and apply an AED, or find a local course near you to be certified in CPR.
Speaker 2:We have learned a lot from the American Heart Association. We have learned the signs and symptoms of a heart attack and stroke, a lot of ways that we can maintain some heart health and be healthy, and I'm still working on that, but I'm going to do it now. We understand what happens if someone were to be in an emergency situation where they're unresponsive, they're not talking and a possibility of not having a heartbeat at that time. It is real important to know what to do in these situations, and the first thing thing you want to do again call 911 and don't panic. Just take one step at a time. It's going to be okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you did your part.
Speaker 2:So thank you so much for being here Again. Remember that February is.
Speaker 3:National Heart Month, heartorg has a wealth of resources if you're looking for recipes, physical activity advice, stress management advice, just to learn more, maybe, about the conditions you manage, or to even get connected to support groups or ways to be involved in the community that drive good health outcomes so that everyone gets a chance for a longer, healthier life.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Jennifer. You summed that up. I don't even have to say anything else.
Speaker 3:That was perfect. Thank you so much for having me, Wendy. It's a joy to be here.
Speaker 4:Thanks for listening to the Quirks, bumps and Bruises podcast with Candy and Melody. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment to subscribe, rate and share the podcast. You can learn more at joyfmorg.
