Cardiac arrest was behind James Gandolfini's death Wednesday at age 51. Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops beating. About 383,000 episodes of cardiac arrest occur outside of a hospital among Americans each year, 88 percent of which happen at home, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). The estimated survival rate is about 11 percent. Many victims are healthy and don't have heart disease or other known risk factors, the AHA added.
Causes include electrical disturbances in heart rhythm, heart attacks and other cardiovascular conditions.
But, cardiac arrest does not necessarily signal a heart attack occurred, though the terms are sometimes misused interchangeably, the AHA points out. Heart attacks, or myocardial infarctions, are caused by a blockage in an artery that disrupts the flow of oxygen-rich blood to the heart. Symptoms could be immediate and intense, including fatigue, palpitations, trouble breathing or chest pain. More often than not though, symptoms will start slowly and occur over days or weeks before a heart attack...
Whereas a heart attack might be thought of as a "plumbing problem," sudden cardiac arrest is more like an "electrical problem," explains the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation...
SOURCE: CBS News