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World Heart Day is a global campaign during which people, families, communities, and governments all around the world participate in activities to take charge of their heart health and of others. This was created by the World Heart Federation, World Heart Day announces to people around the globe that CVD, including heart disease and stroke, is the world’s leading reason for death, claiming 18.6 million lives each year. With the help of this campaign, the World Heart Federation unites people from all countries and backgrounds in the fight against the CVD burden and encourages and drives international action to inspire heart-healthy living across the world.

What is Heart Disease?

A cardiovascular disease, also known as heart disease, refers to a group of diseases that affect the heart and blood vessels of the body. It affects one or many parts of the heart and blood vessels. A heart can become vulnerable to habitual risk factors like smoking, eating an unhealthy diet, or living under stress. Also, the system can be weakened by a pre-existing heart condition and other physiological factors, which include hypertension or high blood cholesterol.

Heart disease has heart or blood vessel problems of the below types:

● Abnormal heart rhythms.
● Heart valve disease.
● Narrowing of the blood vessels in the heart, other organs, or throughout the body with plaque.
● Heart squeezing and relaxation difficulties.
● Heart and blood vessel problems one is born with.
● Problems with the heart’s outer lining.

What Conditions are Cardiovascular Diseases?

There are numerous types of cardiovascular diseases, they are as follows:

• Stroke:


A stroke occurs when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off and without blood, brain cells can be damaged or die. The short- and long-term consequences depend on the region of the brain affected and how quickly it is treated.


• Atrial Fibrillation:


Typically, the heart contracts and then settles to a regular rhythm, forcing blood effectively out and around the body. But, in AF, the heart’s upper chambers (atria) beat irregularly or quiver (fibrillate), lowering the heart’s efficiency and performance, and causing some blood to pool, which can cause clots to form. This condition can impact people of any age, but is more familiar in older people. It is more likely to happen in people with other medical conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension, atherosclerosis, or a heart problem.


• Heart Failure:


This is a severe condition that happens when the heart doesn’t pump enough blood around the body. It can be either acute and arrive unexpectedly, or a progressive, long-term condition. The symptoms include shortness of breath that gets worse over time, coughing or wheezing, tiredness and fatigue, fluid retention with swelling of the legs or abdomen, and being less able to do physically appealing tasks or exercise.


• Cardiac Amyloidosis:


An amyloidosis is a group of diseases that are characterized by the build-up of abnormal deposits of amyloid fibrils. These fibrils are composed of misfolded proteins, which build up in organs throughout the body. Over time, the deposits may cause affected organs to stop working suitably, which can eventually lead to organ failure.

How Common is Heart Disease?

Heart disease is the leading cause of death around the world. Almost half of adults have some form of cardiovascular disease. It affects men and women, equally. In fact, one in three women dies from cardiovascular disease, and it impacts people of all ages, ethnicities, and socioeconomic levels.

What causes heart disease?

The causes of heart disease can differ depending on the specific type of cardiovascular disease. For instance, atherosclerosis, plaque build-up in the arteries, can cause coronary artery disease and peripheral artery disease. Coronary artery disease, scarring of the heart muscle, genetic problems, or medications can cause arrhythmias. Also, aging, infections, and rheumatic disease can cause valve disease.

What are the symptoms of heart disease?

The symptoms of heart disease can vary depending on the cause. Below is the list of different conditions and symptoms:

A. Symptoms of abnormal heart rhythms may include:

• Pounding or racing heart (palpitations).
• Chest pain
• Sweating
• Lightheadedness
• Shortness of breath

B. Symptoms of heart valve disease may include:

• Dizziness
• Tiredness
• Chest pain
• Heart murmur
• Shortness of breath

C. Symptoms of blockages in the blood vessels in your heart, other organs, or throughout your body may include:

• Pain in your chest or upper body
• Neck pain
• Heartburn or indigestion
• Exhaustion
• Shortness of breath
• Nausea or vomiting
• Dizziness

D. Symptoms of heart pumping difficulties include:

• Swelling in your lower body
• Exhaustion.
• Shortness of breath.

E. Symptoms of heart problems you’re born with may include:

• Heart murmur
• Inability to handle exercise
• Shortness of breath

How is a Cardiovascular Disease Diagnosed?

A health care provider will help examine you and ask about your personal and family medical history. There are many various tests used to diagnose heart disease. The tests to diagnose heart disease include the following:

• Electrocardiogram:

Electrocardiogram also known as ECG, is a quick and painless test that records the electrical signals in the heart. This can also tell if the heart is beating too fast or too slowly.

• Holter monitoring:

It is a portable ECG device that’s worn for a day or more to record the heart’s activity during daily activities. It detects irregular heartbeats that aren’t found during a regular ECG exam.

• Echocardiogram:

This test utilizes sound waves to create detailed images of the heart in motion. It also indicates how blood moves through the heart and heart valves. Also, an echocardiogram can help determine if a valve is narrowed or leaking.

• Exercise tests or stress tests:

Such tests involve walking on a treadmill or riding a stationary bike while the heart is monitored. It helps reveal how the heart reacts to physical activity and whether heart disease symptoms occur during exercise. If one can’t exercise, one might be given medication.

• Cardiac catheterization:

One can examine blockages in the heart arteries. A lengthy, narrow flexible tube (catheter) is inserted in a blood vessel, usually in the groin or wrist, and guided to the heart. The dye flows via the catheter to arteries in the heart. It helps the arteries show up more distinctly on X-ray images taken during the test.

• Heart (cardiac) CT scan:

In this type of test, one lies on a table inside a doughnut-shaped machine. An X-ray tube inside the machine revolves around the body and gathers images of the heart and chest.

• Heart (cardiac) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan:

A cardiac MRI utilizes a magnetic field and computer-generated radio waves to produce detailed images of the heart.

How is the Cardiovascular Disease Treated?

Now, treatment plans also vary and depend on the symptoms and the type of cardiovascular disease one has. Cardiovascular disease treatment may include the below following:

● Lifestyle changes: One can make changes to their diet, increase their aerobic activity and try to quit smoking.
● Medications: To control cardiovascular disease, one can go to a healthcare provider who may prescribe medications. Also, medication type will rely on what kind of cardiovascular disease one has.
● Procedures or surgeries: If medications don’t work to manage cardiovascular disease, a healthcare provider may use certain procedures or surgeries to treat the cardiovascular disease. For instance, stents in the heart or leg arteries, minimally invasive heart surgery, open-heart surgery, ablations, and cardioversion.
● Cardiac rehabilitation: One may require a monitored exercise program to help the heart get stronger.
● Active surveillance: One may require careful monitoring over time without medications or procedures.

How to Prevent Heart Disease?

It is a lot difficult to prevent some types of cardiovascular disease, such as congenital heart disease. But, with the help of lifestyle changes, one can reduce the risk of many types of cardiovascular disease.

Here are a few ways how can one reduce their cardiovascular risks:

● One must avoid all tobacco products.
● One must manage other health conditions, such as diabetes, high cholesterol, or high blood pressure.
● It is important to achieve and maintain a healthy weight.
● One must eat a diet low in saturated fat and sodium.
● Exercising at least 30 to 60 minutes per day on most days can be a great help.
● One has to try to reduce and manage stress.

Medical standby is the requirement of emergency medical care and first aid for spectators in any event. India has the world’s second-highest population, and mass gathering is a common thing here. With a large gathering of people at an event, there is always a high possibility of mishaps and accidents happening. Incidents could happen in such a large area with so many people attending, right from passing out due to the heat and exhaustion to meeting with an unfortunate accident. For such instances, having an ambulance on standby, equipped with all the suitable tools to provide emergency medical support in case of an accident, is not only beneficial but also vital for the event to take place smoothly. Standby ensures that the situation is contained at the earliest and the damage is minimized. The risks of danger completely depend on the kind of event.

Here are a few reasons why is it important to have an on-site ambulance for events:

1. Medical Aid

Due to the large crowd of people who usually attend big events, there is a chance of accidents occurring. The on-site ambulance service’s primary job in such incidents is to treat and prevent life-threatening injuries from becoming fatal. Also, a totally equipped on-site ambulance can serve as a mobile medical unit, if a massive situation occurs.

2. Sign of Reassurance

The risk to human life may not necessarily be from fire or explosions, but can also be from the panic such incidents may cause. In India, panic results in horrific stampedes, resulting in innumerable casualties in a single incident. For such incidents, it is always better to have ambulances, along with other emergency services, present on-site. It also, subliminally reassures people that in case of any harm they will be promptly attended to, thereby preventing panic amongst people.

3. Flexibility

With the rise in technology, modern ambulances are prepared to handle several possible types of casualties from burns and heart attacks, to blunt force trauma and overdosing. Thus, they are more than capable of confronting any potential disaster that could occur at a large-scale event.

4. Quick response

For saving people, time is of the essence, and any delay can have ominous consequences for an individual. Generally, large events strain the surrounding infrastructure i.e. roads, bridges, and walkways, thereby controlling emergency vehicles from other parts of the city from being able to respond effectively to an incident. So, having an emergency ambulance service on-site will surely reduce response times in the case of an accident.

Conclusion

With so many lives at risk, safety and security have to be of the utmost importance for any event. It is always reasonable to take every precaution to mitigate any potential damage. Natural calamities and freak accidents due to weather conditions cannot be predicted, but steps to safeguard ourselves against them or minimize their impact can definitely be taken. From unexpected rain, or thunder, to other major climatic conditions, the effect they have can be quite negligible, depending on the rest of the factors in place. So, make sure to follow all the appropriate safety procedures to prevent a calamity from occurring. Having an ambulance present at the event would be great in helping prevent or reduce casualties and fatalities.

The advancement in technology has contributed to saving numerous lives, which includes those impacted by terminal diseases and life-threatening accidents. Along with physicians and surgeons, ambulance drivers and paramedics also play a crucial role in transporting critically ill patients to medical facilities for treatment. The role of ambulance drivers and paramedics is to rush to the scene of an accident or a medical emergency and assist in lifesaving care, working in a team with doctors and nurses.

What is an Air Ambulance?

Air ambulances are used in special cases, such as organ transplantation, where instantaneous transportation of a patient is required. Such ambulances offer safe and quick transportation, along with superior medical facilities and personnel onboard to handle any emergency situations. They are the fastest means of transportation, assuring that organ transit is handled professionally and transplants are finished in the proper state. It is also important to know how the organs are transported inside the air ambulances and stored during the transportation, along with transporting the organs quickly and in time. In usual practice, the harvested organs are washed with a refrigerant because the cooler the organs, the lower the need for oxygen to main their cell health. However, the time changes for each organ to remain healthy outside the human body. For sensitive organs such as kidneys, it can take up to 24 hours, and the liver can take up to 10 to 15 hours. For ensuring that the organs are safe and secure, they are packaged in special containers that keep the organ’s healthy. The storage container used in air ambulances is generally referred to as cold ischemic storage.

Role of Air Ambulance in Organ Transportation

The air ambulance is 100% safe that keeps up with the pace of emergency organ transport for sensitive organs like the heart, kidneys, and liver by providing rapid response times and take-off speeds. Air ambulances are agile and quick that are capable of moving hundreds of miles per hour, covering approximately 300 air miles in less than 2 hours in case of emergency cases. The selection of an ambulance is very essential in the transportation process. One has to ensure that planes and pilots are always on hand and take off on time. The planes are prepared to move fast, and the pilots are trained to do what it takes to get the patients where they need to go as quickly as possible.

Timely organ transplants are important, in a scenario where organ transplants’ need is exceeded and much higher than the supply, with fewer donors than people waiting for life-saving organ transplants. It is a complex and delicate process to get organs to transplant recipients quickly, but green corridors play an integral role in helping the transplant system work. As soon as the organ reaches the airport, it is then transported to the planned hospital through road ambulance. Organs are known to have limited windows of time, and they have already lost a significant piece of survival time to reach all the way to the airport, and the organ is in the final stage of its viability. Thus, to transport the organ from the airport to the hospital, a green corridor is made by taking permission from the traffic police. With this, one can deliver an organ to the transplant spot as quickly as possible before it reaches their countdown and become waste.

Benefits of Air Ambulance

• The primary benefit is that it provides speedy transportation of both the organs and the patients, whenever the need arises.
• The air ambulance services provide 100% safe transportation with advanced tech medical facilities alongside the attendants to handle an emergency condition.
• It is the fastest means of transport that handles organ transportation very well and ensures that the transplant is performed properly.
• One can operate them from anywhere in the world, even at places where a ground vehicle is not able to reach them.
• A statistical analysis indicates that an average of 12 more lives are saved every 100 times when an air ambulance is dispatched over a ground ambulance.
• Specialists teams of doctors and nurses travel aboard the aircraft to provide proper care during long-distance transports.

How Medulance Provides Air Ambulance for Organ Transplant?

Medulance air ambulance is the leading provider of emergency medical services for air travel in the country. It acknowledges that all patients must be eligible to be registered with a transplant centre or centre of their choice, no matter where they live in the country. It is one of the best organ transport ambulances in India that has an experienced organ transport team. The organ transport team can arrange all permits in record time, which helps to shorten the overall time in an emergency. The team makes sure that a personal plane for organ transplantation can be arranged in a very short time. This is required when people suddenly die and need an organ transplant badly. Most of the organs must be transported within 6-10 hours.

It is common for people to panic after an accident, and this feeling cannot be avoided. But, to handle such situations effectively, there are always trained emergency medical personnel available. Paramedics are the spine of emergency medical services and in addition to administering first aid, their duties also contain making liberated decisions about the care of the patient. They are guided by several protocols, all of which are rigorously followed to ensure maximum lives are saved. The protocols are created by national, state, and local medical authorities and institutions. Also, are reviewed regularly and modified according to new assessment tools and treatments.

EMS Protocols for Paramedics:

1. Patient’s medical history

The first & foremost thing is to get a patient’s history following a standardized primary and secondary assessment process. It is necessary for paramedics to obtain a patient’s medical history of life-threatening situations, prior to treatment and other information that can be vital to their treatment.

2. Cause of patient’s problem

The cause of the patient’s problem may command the protocol that is used to treat the patient. Paramedics are instructed not to treat trauma-induced cardiac arrest cases without following standard protocols. They should ensure that patient transport and other treatment as required should receive priority, and must not be postponed.

3. Follow the treatment procedure

It is better to use a procedure to achieve the treatment goal. If the patient examination decides a patient needs fluid many protocols will direct paramedics to attempt two IV insertions before considering interosseous access. They should try a maximum of two IV insertions in cases of non-life-threatening diseases. In case of any additional attempts, one must approve by higher authorities or medical control centers.

4. Patient transportation

A treatment, known as patient transportation should be prioritized based on patient severity and requirement. Superior care for penetrating chest trauma is surgical care and protocols rarely delay transport for IV insertion or endotracheal intubation. Rather, those practices are either performed on route to the hospital, or airway management techniques are used.

5. Online medical direction

Medical control or online medical direction is a resource that paramedics may consult during patient assessment and care. Every protocol need not need to be verbal orders, but when medical control orders are needed it’s useful to repeat all orders received before the orders are initiated.

6. Patient assessment

Patient assessment is known to be a continuous process. It continues to monitor a patient’s important signs and chief complaints throughout the examination, treatment, and transport. Patients with severe complaints, use a cardiac monitor for constant patient monitoring. It is advised to use changes in the patient’s important signs, chief complaint, and pain rating to adjust the patient’s treatment plan.

To standardize medical procedures across all levels, and help paramedics provide the highest level of care for their patients, emergency medical service protocols are designed by local, state, and national medical authorities, and updated regularly. They also ensure that newer and improved practices are constantly incorporated into their repertoire, enabling them to make split-second decisions at times of emergencies. At Medulance we totally understand the criticality of our work, and thus, make sure to adhere to these guidelines, as the lives of our patients hang in the balance.

The existence and the need for ambulance services haven’t penetrated much into the masses as it needs to. With the help of the National Health Mission, 108 ambulance services have been created to improve the efficacy of emergency medical services in India. Many people might think that ambulances are excused from vehicle accidents. As traffic clears for them when they head out on a call, but, this is actually a myth. Accidents of ambulances are more common than people think. Also, many people are not aware of a few myths surrounding the operability of ambulance services.

Myths About Ambulance

1. They are only a mode of transport

Hammocks or other vehicles were used before the 1990s, to meet the need for emergency medical services. India has installed dedicated and reliable ambulance services today, in order to cut-short preventable deaths by delivering quick and quality emergency medical services. With trained medical staff and enough equipment on board, it can stabilize the medical condition of the patient.

2. They are affiliated with hospitals

Ambulance services are not always in affiliation with a hospital. One can locate the nearest hospital to the patient, in order to ensure minimum transit time. Patients or their families might need medical transport services, or even medical repatriation if the situation is not critical. In such cases, when there is no time pressure, traveling to a nearby hospital with a medical escort can offer many benefits in times of comfort and cost.

3. They only provide first aid

Along with first aid help, ambulances also offer life-saving apparatus. Today, many ambulances offer include Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Life Support (ALS) equipment including a defibrillator, oxygen cylinder, and electrocardiography (ECG) machine. While it is right that paramedics also drive ambulances, the primary role of a paramedic is to take care of patients. The ambulance delivers a means of transporting the paramedics to the patient.

4. They do not have qualified staff

Ambulances have paramedics on board who are trained to aid the patient with emergency medication, apart from the driver. The fully trained medical professionals on board are certified by international institutions in order to provide the best emergency medical care. In fact, they have one of the best medical team members, including doctors, paramedics, and nurses. All have ample experience in the field of medical evacuation. It is necessary to have qualified medical professionals and proper medical equipment for successful repatriation.

5. They are available only in urban areas

Today, ambulances have been striving to bridge the gap by providing free-of-cost ambulances that principally focus on efficiency and timeliness. Some services fundamentally strive to improvise the emergency healthcare scenario in rural areas. The existence and the requirement for medical air ambulance services have penetrated much into the masses as it needs to.

6. They do not transport patients if the police are not informed

This is an absolute myth as there are call operators that connect to the nearest police station to inform them about the fatalities and attend to the patient without any delay. In case, if the police are not informed, ambulances can transport the patient to the hospital in the meantime, until the formalities are mitigated.

Emergency medical services are a fundamental need and not a provision. The purpose to expand its reach and accessibility are possible through the efficient transmission of information about them. Medulance offers the best ambulance services as fast as possible. Also, understand the dangers that emergency response teams are subjected to on a daily basis.