General Talking Points
Overall
Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is a leading cause of death in the U.S., killing more than 250,000 people every year1, yet the public does not know enough to protect itself, and the medical community does not know enough to always identify those at risk.
Talking Points
- SCA is a leading cause of death in the U.S. 2
- Americans die from SCA because most do not receive medical treatment within the first 4 – 6 minutes of an attack – when brain and permanent death start to occur.3
- SCA is deadliest among certain segments of the population – particularly women and African Americans.4
- Many victims of SCA did not know they were at risk, and could not recognize warning signs, if any were present at all.5
- In fact, there is much the medical community still does not know either.
- Because medical research has not yet developed effective screening tools, it is difficult for doctors to properly identify patients at risk.
- To save lives, medical research could develop the tools and resources necessary to arm physicians with the information they need, to better understand the causes of SCA and better identify those at risk.
- The American public should know their own risk, be able to identify warning signs, and seek medical attention before it is too late.
- While the federal government has made great strides in research and treatment advances for many of our major health threats - breast cancer, lung cancer, AIDS, and stroke - they have not yet done enough on SCA to educate the public or arm the medical community with the resources it needs.
- With increased federal funding for research, education, and access to treatment, we could go a long way towards saving lives.
1 Heart Rhythm Society, www.hrsonline.org
2 National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, www.nhlbi.nih.gov
3 American Heart Association, www.americanheart.org
4 Yale-New Haven Hospital, www.ynhh.org; New England Journal of Medicine, content.nejm.org
5 National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, www.nhlbi.nih.gov
