Do You Need a Home Defibrillator?
If you have an elderly family member or tenant living in your home, you or a family member has heart disease or other life threatening heart condition, you should consider purchasing a home defibrillator to have on hand in case someone on your home goes into Sudden Cardiac Arrest.
What is a Home Defibrillator?
A home defibrillator also known as a portable defibrillator is basically a small Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) used to restart a person’s heart that has stopped beating. Studies have shown that most people who die from sudden cardiac arrest do so because their is no home AED available to help restart the heart of a patient whose heart has stopped beating and they are no longer breathing. While it only takes paramedics 3-6 minutes on average to respond to an emergency, when the call is due to SCA and no one is available to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) or you do not have a home AED to until emergency personnel arrive, the survival rate drops dramatically.
What Are the Benefits of Having a Home Defibrillator?
Statistics reported by Johns Hopkins University show that 80% of Sudden Cardiac Arrest cases happen in the home, and usually involve the elderly or someone with a heart condition. Simple voice prompts walk you through the process of using a home defibrillator, and also gives instructions for CPR. This is an amazingly simple life-saving device.
Many people who have elderly family members living with them or have a family member with a life threatening heart condition, unfortunately look at the cost of a home AED and decide they will take their chances and hope paramedics arrive in time if their loved one goes into Sudden Cardiac Arrest. This is a dangerous game to play as chances of survival of SCA drops 10% each minute that passes without cardiac fibrillation.
Rather than look at the cost of a home defibrillator, look at the benefit of owning a home AED. A portable defibrillator can get the heart beating and return life-saving oxygen to the body and brain until paramedics arrive and can take the patient to the hospital for an evaluation.
This exact situation happened to my father-in-law. He had a heart attack and suffered from congestive heart failure for several years. His heart condition slowly got worse, and one morning he had a major heart failure. My in laws did not have a home defibrillator and when the paramedics arrived, his pulse very faint and his lips were turning blue as he had stopped breathing. Luckily, the fire department arrived in a few minutes and were able to get him breathing, but they said if they had arrived so just a few minutes later he would have died.
Lately there have been several instances of high school or college athletes around the country collapsing on the field, and several of these young athletes died. If the school saw the benefit of having a portable defibrillator, many of these young athletes may still be alive.
Not too long ago a young girl collapsed in the hallway of her elementary school, and thankfully, the school had a portable defibrillator and was able to restart her heart, which saved her life.
A home defibrillator or a portable defibrillator are the same thing, it is a small Automatic External Defibrillator used to restart the heart of a person who has gone into sudden cardiac arrest, and their heart has stopped beating. This small device can be the difference of life and death for someone in sudden cardiac arrest.
What is the Cost of a Defibrillator?
The cost of a funeral, both financially and emotionally, can be Six to 1o thousand dollars, but the emotional cost of the loss of a loved one really has no value. The cost of a home defibrillator is a little over a thousand dollars. Most people spend 5 – 10 times this defibrillator cost on a summer vacation, but hem and haw about spending a grand on a home defibrillator that can save a life.
So, if you have a loved one in your house who is elderly or has a heart condition, ask yourself – Do you need a home defibrillator?
To Your Health!
Ken
