Pulseless Electrical Activity

Question: one more question about pulseless electrical activity? do you know why a pulseless electrical activity rhythm from hypoxia has a slow and wide QRS complex instead of a fast or normal narrow QRS complex and which rhythm may precede the slow wide complex PEA of hypoxia after respiratory arrest?

Answer: Purkinje fibers need substrates like oxygen to work just like anything else. You'll save central things like that to last as you try to compensate, but when you're screwed, you're screwed.

Question: Pulseless electrical activity? Do you have an idea of how hypoxia(low oxygen) may cause pulseless electrical activity?

Answer: The heart requires oxygen to function. When one is hypoxic, depending on how long and how severely, the heart will not have enough oxygen to continue to function. By the time PEA has come, it's WAY late in hypoxia. The heart has stopped beating--that's why it's called pulseless.

Question: pulseless electrical activity question? Can pulseless electrical activity lead to ventricular fibrillation before asystole or straight to asystole?

Answer: Ventricular fibrillation is when the heart is shaking like a bowl of jello. This is usually a precursor to PEA or pulse less electrical activity. Then the person finally progresses to asystole. There are rare occurrences of asystole showing some pulse less organized rhythms (PEA) but these are few and far between.

Question: Does anyone know what the test for Pulseless Electrical Activity (PEA) has to do with ringing in the ear?

Answer: There is no "test" for PEA other than an EKG and someone taking your pulse. If you have ever had it, you would know it, because you would have been a "code blue" and someone would have performed CPR on you and possibly given you the "shocks" that they show on tv all the time. PEA means that your heart has electrical activity, which means the muscle is still conducting electricity, but it is not firing. This means your EKG could look normal, but you'd be dying because your heart isn't beating. There is no correlation between PEA and ringing in the ear that I am aware of. People who live long enough to complain of tinnitus (ringing in the ear) after PEA would be extemely lucky. Common causes of ringing in the ear: Lasix ( a drug to make you pee), loud noises and too much ibuprofen (advil). JennRN surgery.about.com

Question: cardiac rhtyhms? if hemmorhage causes a fast, narrow complex pulseless electrical activity rhythm how can it progress to asystole?

Answer: all of the life threatening dysryhthmias will progress to asystole if gone untreated.

Question: cardiac arrest? if barbiturate overdose cause cardiac arrest which lethal rhythms might you see asystole(flatline).ventricular fibrillation,pulseless electrical activity,or severe braycardia?

Answer: It'll lower your heartrate-brady, then you'll go V-fib, then asystole. Adios amigo.

Question: What Do you Think Happened? http://news.aol.com/health/article/man-r… I was Thinking a Scenario may Have Involved this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulseless_e… Thanks Grimmy, IDK Either, but No One Comes Back After Being Truly Dead. Grimmy, I Strongly Suspect this is How Some Myths Get Started. Grimmy, Not Much Attention was Given to the Timing of Defibrillation, In my ACLS Course (Long Ago), Are There Recommendations? Thanks Grimmy, but we Know it's Not Magic.

Answer: Don't know, but hopefully not PEA. The article said they shocked him 8 times. PEA is not an indication for defibrillation; so if that's what he had, the doctors really screwed up. Addendum: First, indications for shocking are VTach, VFib, and unstable AFib. With unstable AFib, you use synchronized cardioversion. I think as recently as a few years ago, the shocking algorithm was still shock-shock-shock, then CPR. Now, it's shock once, then 2 mins of CPR, then shock again as needed, then CPR, etc. Ideas about this guy-- given the indications for cardioversion and the fact that he seemed to recover after getting anticoagulated, that suggests s few possibilities. A pulmonary embolism can cause AFib. But if a PE was large enough to cause this, I would think you would need a focused thrombolysis to fix it within 45 mins. The other possibility is that he had an ischemic event that sent him into an arrhythmia. If it was a vessel that hit a small area in the subendocardium (where the main parts of the conduction system lay), that might have been enough to throw him into VTach/Fib. Heparin, ASA, or a GP IIb-IIIa inhibitor might have been enough to open up flow. I would think 45 mins would be a long time for a nerve to survive without blood flow though. Don't know. Not a cardiologist.

Question: pulseless electrical activity? Pulseless electrical activity can be a sinus rhythm(fast,slow or normal)without a pulse ,supraventricular tachycardia without a pulse, or an idioventricular rhythm without a pulse. so if someone who is hypoxic which of the PEA Rhythms are most likely to occur?

Answer: Also known as electro mechanical dissociation, even whith idioventricular morphology, is due mainly to myocardial ischemia, and as such, irreversible ventricular fibrillation, or if previously medicated with quinidine derivatives, or amiodarone, then "ventricular polymorphic spikes" rhythm normally follows.....same prognosis (bad)

Question: pulseless electrical activity? if pulseless electrical activity results from hypoxia will it have a fast narrow QRS complex ,a slow narrow QRS complex,or a slow wide QRS complex?

Answer: People usually start out fast in an attempt at compensation and then "fall off the edge" with a slow, wide complex as the conducting system of the heart is starved of oxygen.

Question: pulseless electrical activity? do you know what year the name electromechanical activity was changed to pulseless electrical activity?

Answer: I learned it as electromechanical dissociation - EMD - and I have no idea when they changed the name. Sorry.