Cardiac Arrest is a globally dreaded medical phenomenon that has remained a great challenge to the medical world.
Out of the world’s reported cases of cardiac arrest, Nigeria, which is not an exemption to this dreaded healthcare challenge, records more than one hundred thousand cases every year; out of which about fifty percent end in death, due to lack of immediate medical attention to the victim.
In this special report, our Abuja bureau Chief, Ekwi Ajide takes a look at the cause and remedy for this dreaded silent killer.
In recent times, cases of sudden and inexplicable deaths have been trending on both the traditional and social media.
According to a cardiologist, Prof. Augustine Odili of the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, the answer is not farfetched as only about fifty percent of the citizenry are aware about their blood pressure status which is the major cause of heart failure or attack.
Prof. Odili cautioned that at age forty, it becomes mandatory that one checks his blood pressure and sugar at least once a year, desist from taking more calories than needed and modify life style.
He advocated every home, office, establishment to have a first aid kit and members taught the basic resuscitation processes to ensure immediate attention.
For a dietician at the Federal Medical Centre, Jabi Abuja, Mr. Cosmos Ugwu, one is what he or she eats and urged people to always involve themselves with healthy living through food and exercise.
Mr. Ugwu decried what he termed borrowing foreign lifestyles instead of one’s own kind of lifestyle and opined that if hospitals employ dieticians, heart failure will be reduced drastically.
For Messes Richard Dauda and Uchenna Chukwu they have been cautious, checked their blood pressure regularly and fed well since they have history of High blood pressure in their families and urged Nigerians to be mindful of the food they eat so as to live longer.
It is worthy of note that the recent threshold for a normal blood pressure is one forty over ninety five as against one sixty over ninety five.
