Having a defibrillator at home can help a heart attack survivor live through a second crisis, but so can CPR and at a much lower cost. That’s the bottom line from the first test of using these heart-shocking devices in the home.
The devices worked. But so few people in the study were stricken at home, and CPR by spouses in the comparison group was so good, that the 7,000-person study wound up being be too small to prove that a defibrillator can improve survival. It did for South Carolinian James Kennedy. For three years, his family lugged one to the grocery store, to church and on trips.
"Thank God we had it" last August, when his daughter used it to save his life at home, said Kennedy’s wife, Debra. Others also benefited – seven friends and neighbors of people in the study. They got a lifesaving heart shock, too.
"There’s no downside" to having a home defibrillator, said study leader Dr. Gust Bardy of the Seattle Institute for Cardiac Research. However, they cost $1,000 or more. And others say health dollars are better spent boosting CPR training.
Arguments to expand access to defibrillators "have an emotional quality" not justified by cost and success rates, said Dr. David Callans of the University of Pennsylvania. He wrote an editorial that the New England Journal of Medicine published on the Internet along with the study.
Results also were given Tuesday at an American College of Cardiology conference in Chicago. Cardiac arrest happens when the heart beats chaotically. Automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, can shock it back into normal rhythm, and have been successfully used by bystanders in airports, casinos and other public places.
However, three-fourths of the 166,000 cardiac arrests that occur outside hospitals each year happen at home, and only 2 percent of victims survive. One home defibrillator, made by a Seattle-based division of Philips Healthcare, weighs less than four pounds and is sold on the Internet for as little as $1,200. Researchers tested them in 7,000 people in the United States, Canada, Australia, England, Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand.
About half were given a device and a spouse or companion was trained to use it, then told to call emergency medical services. For the others, family members were trained in CPR and told to call EMS. Over about three years, 450 people died, but only 160 were from cardiac arrest. Of those, only 58 were at home and suffered the attack in front of someone. Defibrillators were used in 32 casesûall of them appropriately.
The overall survival in both groups was comparable and far better than researchers expected. "We did have some people that simply panicked and didn’t know what to do," he said. It happened to Debra Kennedy when her 55- year-old husband James, was stricken in August at their home in North Augusta, S.C.
Her 20- year-old daughter, Brittany, took over while her mom called EMS. "I grabbed the defibrillator, I put the little pads on him and it shocked him. It gives you all the instructions," the young woman said.
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