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Lauren Abbott remembers her nearly 2-year-old son, Lucas Abbott, holding on to her as he patted her on the back to help her cough up food at her home in Carmel, Indiana, in 2017. ing.
She thought he was choking. But then he started turning blue and his breathing stopped. He began having his first of many sudden cardiac arrests.
Sudden cardiac arrest is when the heart stops pumping blood and the person becomes unconscious and unable to breathe.
Lucas was diagnosed with ventricular tachycardia in the lower left ventricle, an extremely rare and undetectable arrhythmia. This caused the heart to beat faster and the heart chambers to not fill with blood, leading to cardiac arrest.
“He lost all his speech and couldn’t even sit up. It was like he was a baby again,” Abbott said.
Undiagnosed heart disease can cause sudden cardiac arrest even in seemingly healthy children. When the disease occurs, about 11% of children survive, but many face an uphill battle to recovery.
Only 8% of survivors of sudden cardiac arrest recover without neurological damage. The extent of damage depends on several factors, including how quickly you are resuscitated. Victims of sudden cardiac arrest are more likely to sustain some degree of brain damage if 4 to 6 minutes pass without CPR. On the other hand, if more than 10 minutes pass without resuscitation, brain death can occur.
Lauren and her family immediately performed CPR when her son’s heart stopped. That’s one of the reasons he’s still alive and recovering.
Lauren said it felt like they were constantly living in the hospital while Lucas was in the hospital for two-and-a-half months, followed by several more years of treatment. It wasn’t until three months later that Lucas was able to walk on his own two feet and feed himself again. It took him another 6 to 8 months before he could use the stairs, which he didn’t always have access to right away or didn’t have a handrail.
If someone saw him now, Lauren said, they probably wouldn’t have any idea what ever happened. But the side effects of sudden cardiac arrest continue to manifest in other ways.
Lucas is currently 8 years old. Although he is able to do physical activities such as sparring during Taekwondo practice, it is difficult to maintain his reading and math skills.
“He knows all his letters, he knows his numbers,” Abbott said. “He can add and subtract facts, and he can read. Some days he reads really well. But some days, he forgets everything we’ve done and he’s there. It feels like there’s nothing to build on.”
Studies have shown that one in four children who survive cardiac arrest suffer from cognitive impairment.
“At first, milestones may be delayed, but then with treatment, things get much better,” said Lisa McGuire, a pediatric neurologist at Ascension St. Vincent Hospital. “And then you start school. And you actually start to notice that you have problems with social interaction and learning and even concentration and attention and behavior.”
Maguire, who has worked with Lucas for the past seven years, recommends that Lucas play certain games to improve his reaction time and memory. She thinks he will continue to get better.
Physical damage to survivors
Between 300,000 and 400,000 people in the United States suffer sudden cardiac arrest each year, about twice as many people in Kansas City, Kansas, and about 20,000 of them are children.
Studies have shown that in addition to cognitive and physical damage, survivors of out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest may experience high rates of psychological distress. Rates of depression range from 14% to 45%, rates of anxiety range from 13% to 61%, and rates of post-traumatic stress disorder range from 19% to 27%.
Some people say that sudden cardiac arrest is rare. But awareness has increased recently, especially following high-profile cases involving young and seemingly healthy athletes.
Zane Hendrickson couldn’t breathe after doing laps during swim practice. He started having stomach pains, so his friend drove him 30 minutes from Booneville, Indiana, to the nearest hospital in Evansville. He suffered a sudden cardiac arrest there in 2021.
“Of course I never thought I had that possibility,” Zane said. “I spent my whole life going [with] There are almost no illnesses. The worst thing that happened to me was a chipped tooth. ”
Hendrickson eventually suffered a seizure and was in a coma for about two weeks. His cardiac arrest was caused by an undiscovered birth defect that affected his coronary arteries, much like when a garden hose gets kinked and the water doesn’t come out.
Approximately 1 in 50,000 to 80,000 young athletes die from sudden cardiac arrest each year, making it the leading cause of death among young athletes. For comparison, the incidence of sudden cardiac arrest death in the general population is 1 in 1,000.
After his heart stopped, Hendrickson underwent open-heart surgery and was later fitted with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), which shocked him when his heartbeat became irregular. He was hospitalized for about three months to relearn how to walk and talk. Currently, he can only type with one hand, and his left arm may never regain full function.
He’s adjusting to the new normal, even going back to swimming recreationally, but dealing with new medical needs can be overwhelming at times, he said.
Chances of survival and what happens next
Sudden cardiac arrest is unexpected, but there are ways to prepare for it if it happens. Immediately he learns how to perform CPR and has immediate access to an automated external defibrillator (AED), which can dramatically improve outcomes.
In 2022, just three days after his 17th birthday, Jacob Mikeworth of Monrovia, Indiana, collapsed during his high school choir practice and suffered sudden cardiac arrest.
“I just suddenly felt tired. I couldn’t really say anything. I couldn’t breathe or anything. So I kept looking at my friend and I fell,” he said.
Fortunately, a friend caught Jacob before his head hit the metal bleachers, and someone eventually used an automated external defibrillator to shock his heart, saving his life. If someone uses his AED within the first few minutes and there is a rhythm that shocks the victim, the survival rate of the young man increases to 61-87%. Each minute of delay reduces your chances of survival by up to 10%.
Jacob was diagnosed with ventricular fibrillation, a malfunction of the normal heart rhythm in the lower chambers of the heart. He was hospitalized for about a week. He has since had a pacemaker implanted, which sends him into shock if his heart rate drops too low. But doctors told him he would likely be on heart medication for the rest of his life.
Now, he’s finishing his senior year of high school, but not without some hurdles, some of which came two years after his cardiac arrest.
Jacob said his heart medication makes his eyes more sensitive to light, which can cause migraines. He sometimes wears sunglasses indoors to help, but he said some teachers don’t think he needs them.
“We’re certainly allowed to wear sunglasses,” Jacob says. it’s okay. Look at your age, you are very energetic. ”
Recently, he started feeling weak, his vision was blurry, and his joints started to hurt. His mother, Amy Mikeworth, said these medical issues may have been caused by his cardiac arrest, but could also be related to his nervous system.
“All we know is that he continues to have problems, and the cardiologist doesn’t think it has anything to do with his heart,” Amy said. “So that’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
Amy said she needed to see a neurologist, but it could be up to six months before she could see one. Such long wait times are not uncommon.
“Even if you go through neuropsychiatric tests that quantify the problems after a brain injury, whether it’s from an arrest or a concussion, you can’t really tell,” said Maguire, a pediatric neurologist. To tell. “I think we’re almost on the brink, to be honest.”
Even if you can make an appointment, Maguire says it can be difficult to get neuropsychological testing covered by insurance.
Contact WFYI health reporter Elizabeth Gabriel at egabriel@wfyi.org.
Side Effects Public Media is a health reporting collaboration based at WFYI in Indianapolis. We are affiliated with His NPR stations in the Midwest and surrounding areas, including Missouri’s He KBIA and KCUR, Iowa Public Radio, Ohio’s Ideastream, Kentucky’s He WFPL, and more.
This report was supported by a grant from. USC Annenberg Health Journalism Center 2023 Data Fellowship.
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