FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

No, the terms mean different things. Although ‘heart attack’ is often used to refer to a sudden cardiac arrest, this is incorrect. A heart attack (or myocardial infarction, to use the medical term) occurs when an artery supplying the heart with blood becomes blocked. This usually causes chest pain and leads to damage to some of the muscles of the heart. It may cause cardiac arrest, particularly in the early stages, but this is not inevitable.

The risk of cardiac arrest however, emphasises the importance of calling for immediate help if anyone is suspected of having a heart attack, so that they can receive treatment to reduce the damage to their heart and reduce the risk of a cardiac arrest occurring.

Cardiac arrest means that the heart has stopped pumping blood around the body. This may occur for many reasons, but loss of the electrical co-ordination that controls the normal heartbeat is usually responsible. 

The most likely cause is ventricular fibrillation, in which the normal orderly electrical signal that controls the heartbeat becomes completely disorganised and chaotic, and the heart is unable to act as a pump. Ventricular fibrillation can be treated with a defibrillator that delivers a high energy shock to restore the heart’s normal rhythm. 

The letters CPR stand for cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The term embraces all the procedures from basic first aid to the most advanced medical interventions that can be used to restore the breathing and circulation in someone whose heart and breathing have stopped.

For lay people and first aiders, CPR refers to the basic first aid procedures that can be used to keep someone alive until the emergency medical services can get to the scene. The most important skills are chest compressions to pump blood around the body.

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