andrel <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> On 15-6-2009 14:02, Stephen wrote:

> > electrical impulses to the heart are interrupted and fibrillation occurs. IIRC
> > there are parts of the heart that receive the electrical impulses from the
> > brain then transmit secondary impulses to the muscle tissue to contract and
> > relax in an organised way.
>
> No the heart is autonomous, will even beat outside the body for some
> time (hours) if oxygenated. It's frequency can be modulated by stuff in
> the blood and by nerve tissue that is close to the sinus node when they
> release special molecules.
>

I thought that you might respond :)



> > The electrical shock interrupts this process and you
> > get a disorganised high frequency oscillation in different parts of the heart.
>
> No, but what happens is much more complicated (i.e. you need a
> complicated model to describe it and even then you see it happening
> without getting much more understanding, but it works).
> Standard procedure to induce VF in an open chest heart: hold a 9V
> battery against it. And, no, I don't know how it actually works, but it
> does.
>

You are the expert I'm only a first aider


> > A defibrillator is used to stop this effectively stopping the heart and the
> > natural sinus rhythm can be resumed. Before defibrillators became commonplace
> > the manual method was to strike the victims chest above the heart with a
> > controlled blow using the pinkie side of your fist. This was supposed to have

>
> I does work sometimes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precordial_thump Do
> not apply to people that are not in VF:

Unless you want to kill them ;)

Stephen

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