How to ID a Stroke and Heart Attack Self-Help

Article Submitted by The American Heart Association

Three Questions to ID a Stroke
This might be a lifesaver if we can remember the three questions!

Is It a Stroke?
Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, this lack of awareness can spell disaster. The stroke victim may suffer brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.

Now, doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

• Ask the individual to smile.
• Ask him or her to raise both arms.
• Ask the person to speak a simple sentence.

If he or she has trouble with any of these tasks, call 9-1-1 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

After discovering that a group of non-medical volunteers could identify facial weakness, arm weakness and speech problems, researchers urged the general public to learn the three questions. They presented their conclusions at the American Stroke Association's annual meeting last February. Widespread use of this test could result in prompt diagnosis and treatment of the stroke and prevent brain damage.

Heart Attack Self Help
A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to 10 people, you can bet that at least one life will be saved. Read this ... It could save your life.

Let's say it's 6:15 p.m. and you're driving home (alone, of course) after an unusually hard day on the job. You're really tired, upset and frustrated. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up into your jaw. You are only about five miles from the hospital nearest your home. Unfortunately, you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far. You have been trained in CPR, but the guy that taught the course did not tell you how to perform it on yourself.

How to Survive a Heart Attack When Alone
Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, without help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness. However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest. A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without let-up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again.

Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital.

Tell as many people as possible about this. It could save their lives.