Myocardial infarction is a type of ischemic heart disease or coronary artery disease, which occurs when the heart does not receive enough blood due to the acute and total obstruction of one of these arteries that feed it, causing the death of heart cells. cardiac muscle. Along with cardiac arrest, they are the most serious of cardiovascular diseases, which are the leading cause of death for men and women around the world. Last year in Spain, there were 13,505 deaths from acute myocardial infarctions, according to the National Institute of Statistics
A myocardial infarction can be caused by blockage of the coronary arteries due to the accumulation of fat in their walls, a blood clot that blocks an artery - which has been narrowed due to a fatty plaque -, a contraction of an artery but also a chronic heart disease, such as heart failure or arrhythmias. Although anyone can suffer a myocardial infarction, those who suffer from cardiovascular problems, people with a family history or those who have a risk factor such as hypertension, cholesterol, smoking, diabetes, overweight and a sedentary lifestyle are more likely.
Myocardial infarction manifests itself through different symptoms, which can occur in different combinations and without it being necessary for them to occur all at once. The most characteristic are: intense pain in the chest, in the precordial area (where the tie), feeling of general malaise, dizziness, nausea and sweating. The pain may spread to the left arm, jaw, shoulder, back, or neck.
Approximately half of heart attacks appear without previous symptoms, that is, the heart attack is the first manifestation of ischemic heart disease. Sometimes, however, the patient may manifest symptoms a few months before, such as malaise, tiredness, irritability or even stomach discomfort that is not associated with the heart.
The main risk of acute myocardial infarction is the time before admission to the hospital. If care is received early enough, modern treatments allow for a successful recovery. But on the other hand, the more time passes since the first symptoms, the greater the complications.
Therefore, you should go to the doctor immediately if you have strange chest pain that lasts five minutes or more. An electrocardiogram, which records the electrical activity of the heart, is the diagnostic test that determines whether you are having a heart attack or not.
Sometimes it happens that a heart attack is confused with angina because they share symptoms. And although in both cases it is a disease of the coronary arteries, in angina pectoris there is a partial occlusion of one of these arteries, while in a heart attack the occlusion is total and hence its severity. And although they share symptoms, they do not have the same intensity either. In angina pectoris, the pain is usually less prolonged in time - it usually does not last more than 20 or 30 minutes - and disappears when the patient remains at rest.
A myocardial infarction should also not be confused with sudden death, which is a sudden death caused by the loss of heart function, that is, cardiac arrest. It is caused by an electrical malfunction of the heart, whose activity becomes very irregular and causes the patient to lose consciousness. In this case, first aid – cardiorespiratory resuscitation – must be performed as quickly as possible. If cardiac arrest lasts more than five minutes, brain damage is most likely, and if it lasts more than 8 minutes, death is most likely.
