Awareness can help us survive and a timely responsive can help us save others. Even though we should always remain concerned about our health and well-being as well as that of the loved ones around us, the month of February gives us the right push and increase our efforts to ensure just that.
According to the yearly reports released by the American Heart Association (AHA), each year in America, about 326,200 people suffer from cardiac arrest, with 9 out of 10 victims dying as a result. Furthermore, 38.7% of these arrests are witnessed by a bystander, 10.9% are witnessed by an EMS provider, and about 50.4% of these arrests happen where the sufferer is all alone by themselves.
Such alarming statistics definitely call for relevant action to be taken. A change in our ways, lifestyle, and how we should act when a person is suffering from a cardiac arrest right before our eyes is something which should be focused on. What better time to take an initiative other than in the American Heart Month itself. There are many ways in which we can take a step towards a better and healthy future. Allow us to enlighten you with a few ideas:
Spreading Awareness:
- Bring a change in your eating habits, especially in households where a person has already suffered from a cardiac arrest once and the presence of an AED saved their life. Cut back on greasy food, spices, high-fat dairy product and food with artificial sugar and sweeteners.
- Organize campaigns or create a society to motivate and convince the school administrations to arrange life-saving training programs that teach the use of an Automated External Defibrillator (AED).
- One of the leading causes of death in women all over the world is heart attack. Wear red to let women know about the danger and to spread awareness.
- Make it a family and friends event. Get your hearts checked through a heart screening test and encourage others to do the same. Not only will this process help in detecting any risk and danger of a heart disease, but will also provide you a hint to be prepared in case someone is prone to having one.
- Doctors are more than willing to spread awareness. Ask doctors to speak out and point out ways to prevent heart diseases.
Become Prepared:
The reason that avoidable disasters and misfortunes occur is because we never think it can happen to us. So, we are never prepared to handle the situation. In the American Heart Month, we can take a different approach and remain equipped and trained to save people who suffer from a sudden cardiac arrest. Here’s how we can do it:
- An Automated External Defibrillator (AED) instantly brings the heart back to its original rhythm. Make it a point to keep one at your house and convince the administrations of workplaces, fire departments, schools and other public places to always keep one at hand as well.
- Never leave a person with heart disease unattended.
The number of people dying from cardiac arrests has been rapidly increasing; so, let’s make a vow in this coming month to work together, bring this number down and save lives by speaking out and taking actions.