Your age? How does your age have anything to do with it?
- About 20% of all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happen to people under 50. Ditto for people in their 50's, ditto for those in their 60's, ditto for those in their 70's, and the same for those 80 or older.
- The total size of these population blocks gets smaller and smaller as you get older.
- The graph below shows the percentage chance of your having an arrest in the next 365 days.
Keep in mind that these figures about age distribution are approximate. It was a lot easier to calculate and remember by using the 20% number for each age bracket. The distortion isn't major.
When you couple this info with the facts that (1) 70% of all out of hospital sudden cardiac arrests occur in the home, and (2) the ambulance is going to have a difficult time getting to the victim within ten minutes (10% survival) or within 3 to 4 minutes (50-60% survival), you really might want to consider an AED for your home.
Bob
