What’s the difference between a heart attack and cardiac arrest? One’s about plumbing, the other wiring

pop & funanalysisThe Conversation: Basketball

What’s the difference between a heart attack and cardiac arrest? One’s about plumbing, the other wiring

the gist

A heart attack and a cardiac arrest are different problems that can overlap. A heart attack, or myocardial infarction, happens when the heart muscle is injured or dies because its own blood supply through the coronary arteries is blocked, usually by plaque from atherosclerosis. A cardiac arrest is an electrical failure in which the heart stops working as an effective pump, most often through a dangerous rhythm such as ventricular fibrillation, a chaotic quiver of over 300 beats a minute. Ventricular tachycardia, pulseless electrical activity and asystole, the flatline, are the other types. A heart attack can trigger a cardiac arrest, which is why the two are often confused.

so what

Knowing the difference matters because the response differs: a cardiac arrest needs immediate CPR and defibrillation, while a heart attack needs rapid treatment to restore blood flow.

more on this

background

Cardiac arrest, also known as sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), is a condition in which the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating or beats in a way which fails to produce pulse. When the heart stops, blood cannot circulate properly through the body and the blood flow to the brain and other organs is decreased. When the brain does not receive enough blood, this can cause a person to lose consciousness and brain cells begin to die within minutes due to a lack of oxygen. Coma and persistent vegetative state may result from cardiac arrest. Cardiac arrest is typically identified by the absence of a central pulse and abnormal or absent breathing.

Cardiac arrest and resultant hemodynamic collapse often occur due to arrhythmias (irregular heart rhythms). Ventricular fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia are most commonly recorded. However, as many incidents of cardiac arrest occur out-of-hospital or when a person is not having their cardiac activity monitored, it is difficult to identify the specific mechanism in each case.

From Wikipedia: Cardiac arrest (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗

see

Cerevisae, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate Airman Apprentice Ni…, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Timothy Clemans ( talk ), CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Conversation

Illustrative photo · Blausen Medical Communications, Inc., CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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historyThe Public Domain Review1909 · United States

D. W. Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909)

the gist

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.

how it works

To corner a market, a trader buys up most of the available supply and the futures contracts that promise more. Anyone who has to deliver the commodity must then buy from the cornerer at whatever price is demanded. The trader profits until the stock is released or the scheme collapses.

so what

A century on, it still shows how markets can be rigged by someone who controls supply, and how the people at either end, farmers and eaters, pay for it. It also helped establish editing as a way to argue a point, not just tell a story.

the bigger pattern

Corners have recurred whenever supply could be locked up, from the Hunt brothers' attempt on silver in 1979 to 1980 to the 'Black Friday' gold panic of 1869. Many such schemes end by collapsing, and the response is often new rules on speculation.

fun fact

In the film the Wheat King dies by falling into a grain elevator and being buried in the wheat he hoarded, an ending borrowed from Norris's novel The Octopus.

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