In the past four years, cardiac arrest survival rates have doubled in Copenhagen, Denmark’s capitol city, near where Cardiac Science has its international offices. Cardiac arrest survival rates have risen from 7.5 percent to 15 percent. In 2009, 130 people survived cardiac arrest in the Copenhagen area.
The Copenhagen Post reports that experts attribute the new rates to factors that include growing awareness of CPR and automated external defibrillator (AED) use, and the increasing availability of AEDs in the city’s public buildings. The annual report of the city’s emergency services noted that family, colleagues and bystanders are now more likely to actively assist a cardiac arrest victim. In two-thirds of reported incidents in which a cardiac arrest victim was revived in 2009, a layperson was involved in the rescue.
Experts also suggest that victims of sudden cardiac arrest have a greater chance of surviving in Copenhagen than in other parts of the country because of the readily availability of hospital emergency services in the city, including coronary specialists and intensive care facilities.
Dr. Søren Loumann Nielsen told the Danish press that Copenhagen had made an improvement in the chain of survival, from bystander awareness of CPR and AED use to more sophisticated medical treatment.
“We can see that everything has been going in the right direction during the last few years, and we are also seeing more patients not only surviving but recovering without suffering major ill-effects and for a longer period of time,” he said.
Read more about the work that Cardiac Science and the Danish Red Cross are doing to help develop AED programs for businesses in Denmark.
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Thu, Jul 15, 2010 |
AEDs, Outside the US