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The Defibrillator Theory

There's so many causal factors in any medical condition, I don't think it's easy to say "We've seen and increase in X so Y must be the cause".

You might also suggest that heart attacks in apparently healthy, active people has increased since the government push on anti-obesity measures, guilting folks into exercise who led a sedentary past.
Each individual case can be assigned factors; the statistics can only chart the 'numbers' of shared factors, surely?
 
There's so many causal factors in any medical condition, I don't think it's easy to say "We've seen and increase in X so Y must be the cause".

Each individual case can be assigned factors; the statistics can only chart the 'numbers' of shared factors, surely?
This is where kebabs got a bad name (when cooked properly and eaten under normal circumstances they are perfectly fine), but it was people coming back from the pub and stuffing them down their faces on top of 20 pints of lager that caused their health issues, not the kebab per se.
 
I suppose that merely being depressed that you can't go out and do the things you like to do could be a contributing factor (along with actually not exercising?) Depression/anger etc causes many illnesses, stress etc.

I think people put on weight during the lockdowns.
Less exercise, more comfort eating, more boozing at home.
People are also quite stressed at the moment with the cost of living.
It all takes a toll on health.
 
Not-so-fantastic Mr Fox - and Wrong Said Fred.

For me the weirdest thing about public defibrillators is how do they know that's where all the heart attacks are going to happen? Are they installed by time travellers? Or are people supposed to hang around nearby, just on the off chance?
Where all the heart attacks are going to happen is anywhere there are people. The idea is to provide enough coverage for a person in need to be reasonably near one.
 
Are they ever used, especially those you see out in the countryside?
Are they simply a box ticking exercise for councils?

The following page says only 3% are used outside hospitals and I presume most of those are by paramedics. It also says survival rate drops by 10% per minute so even if you were to need one, it needs to be found, opened and used by an untrained person very quickly:
https://risk-assessment-products.co.uk/blog/how-many-lives-are-saved-by-defibrillators-in-the-uk/
 
I suspect that in many cases, defibrillators are sited according to the same rule as cycle lanes: they are positioned according to where space is available rather than where the need is greatest.

Thus in many villages, the defibrillator is in what used to be the phone box — unless of course the old phone box has already been converted into a miniature community library or art gallery.

I suspect that most heart attacks occur either in the home or the place of work, simply because they are the two places where people spend most of their time, and tend to be sedentary. In my village, the defibrillator is next to the sports field and playground that is used mainly by children. It is at one end of a village with "Long" in its name, and 10–15 minutes' walk from where the high risk age groups congregate: the Co-op shop, the two takeaways, the village café, and the two pubs (which are all fairly central) and half an hour's walk from the parish church.

This link suggests only 3% of defibrillators positioned outside of hospitals are actually used. ("Outside of" meaning "not in hospitals" rather than "just outside the hospital"!)

This link suggests public access defibrillators save about 20 lives a year, which is not to be sniffed at.

This link points to a substantial increase in heart attack deaths linked to the pandemic. Some are due to reduced access to diagnosis, some due to reduced access to treatment, and some are due to the fact that the Covid 19 infection itself increases the risk.

A bit of Googling shows the first public access defibrillators were introduced in the 1970, and that by 2014, it was already common for communities to be raising money to get them installed locally. That is way before Covid 19

Of course, it is possible that taking the vaccine increases your risk of a heart attack. If it is a vaccine against something that causes a greater increase in risk then the vaccine is not the problem.

As always, a major problem is that the general public has very little understanding of the nuances of probabilities and statistics, and looks for simple answers to complex questions.


The image below is the number of public defibrillators in the UK by city, just showing the top few cities. At about £1,000 to £1,500 each (plus installation and maintenance costs) that is a lot of money per life saved. Saving life is worth a lot, of course, but whether these public access defibrillators are the best way of spending the money available is a valid question. In my own case, I've had huge amounts of training on CPR and EAR but would have no idea how to use a defibrillator.
Screenshot 2023-01-22 at 09.36.23.png
 
In most cases public defibrillators are paid for by charity or business funds.
A modern defibrillator literally tells you what to do, it talks you through the process.
 
The place where I work has a defibrillator.
Mainly, I think, due to one of the directors having Brugada Syndrome. He's a very fit fellow who does cycling marathons, but he's had this heart problem from his youth. He has an implanted pacemaker, but if that failed, we'd probably have to use the defibrillator on him.
 
Easily done.

You mention you are highly trained in CPR and EAR, if only more could say this.
Huge amounts — not quite the same as highly trained. I did RLSS training for a long time when a teenager. I both gave and received training/practice most weeks over several years when I was a scuba diver. We also touched on it in connection with kayaking. I then did a workplace 1st Aider course. That's lots of doing essentially the same thing, with slight differences in the rhythm. (5:1, 6:1, 15:2, etc.) and the speed (Nelly the Elephant, Staying Alive, etc.)

I'm confident I could give EAR and/or CPR. I am however aware that the chance of it saving a life is slim. It is often taught in a sanitised way with the subject starting to breathe after a minute or two. In real life, all you can usually achieve is to keep oxygen circulating until help arrives which may be a long time.

My first wife, who was also RLSS and BSAC trained, had to give EAR & CPR to a neighbour — a close friend's father — but it was to no avail. When my father died last year, the ambulance was there within 7 minutes (they heard him collapse as he was ringing for help) and they used a CPR machine (big piston thing) and pads and everything as we watched, but I felt at the time it was largely "theatre" to show they'd tried their best.
 
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(Genuine pic, BTW)

On a more serious note, I wish that I could trace the item I saw in a reputable newspaper; it maintained that the upsurge in numbers of defibs was simply down to the NHS "gaming" its poor response time statistics.

maximus otter
There you have it in a nutshell I think. Despite all the TV advertising about F.A.S.T. Ms P says that the elderly in care homes often have to wait HOURS for an ambulance when a stroke or heart attack occurs. Care homes are apparently not allowed to whisk a victim to hospital for "health and safety" reasons. Work that one out.
 
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