Defibrillator

Final physics essay

Daniela Ocampo & Manuela Quintero

10A

Do you know how does a defibrillator works? In the last year’s defibrillators have
saved an enormous percent of people around the world from serious and delicate situations,
thanks to this artefact a big amount of life’s after cardiac arrests have been salvage. The
following paper will explain and investigate all aspects in which electricity and the human
body are related including topics of life saving, doctor use while including scientific
knowledgement and mostly science in general. The different perspectives about these two
terms will be discussed also.

You might me wondering what is a defibrillator. Well, a defibrillator is a machine

designed for detecting how a heartbeat is doing inside humans’ body, for having everything
controlled while people are been provided with their normal life’s. Is important having
clear the definition of a cardiac arrest before starting the complete explanation. The term of
cardiac arrest is given to the action of the stopping of blood pumping all around your body,
when this action takes place and no more blood is being sent to the brain, consequently
humans life will be in danger because of the oxygen lack. So, here is when this magic
machine appears, the defibrillator immediately sends an electric shock to the heart causing
it to react positively.

There are tree different types of defibrillators include the manual external defibrillator,
manual internal defibrillator and lastly the automated external defibrillator. All of them
work in different and specific ways for the maintenance of human health. They are used to
prevent or correct an arrhythmia, a heartbeat that is too slow or too fast. Manual external
defibrillator are the ones used in ambulances and only where capable and experience hands
can handle them, determine the cardiac rhythm and determines rapidly the voltage needed
on the shock. The implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, this device control and monitor the
heart and detects immediately any irregularity (as the name implies). The manual internal
defibrillator, used mostly on open chest surgeries giving internal paddles for electric and
direct shocks in the heart to take place. Defibrillators can operate in children, teenagers and
adults.

In 1933, Dr. Albert Hyman, a heart specialist and Henry Hyman, an electrical
engineer, were looking for an alternative way of injecting really powerful drugs directly to
into the human heart without causing any collateral damage to patience health. They came
up with an invention that used an electrical shock in place of a dangerous and risky drug
injection. The invention was called the Hyman Otor, consisting of a hollow needle used to
pass an insulated wire to the heart area to deliver immediately an electrical shock. The
hollow steel needle acted as one end of the circuit and the tip of the insulated wire to the
other end.

The first defibrillator in the world was created in 1965 by a doctor named Frank Pentridge.
This device was first used in 1966 installed in an ambulance for severe cases, the
defibrillator was powered by car battery and weighed 70 kg. Thanks to the advancement of
technology, it has been more accessible to use these types of machines. Nowadays the
batteries last longer and in better conditions, approximate about 5 years or even 300
discharges. The connection between the defibrillator and the patient being attended, consist
of a pair of electrodes, each one of them provide with electrically conductive gel in order to
provide a good connection and to minimize the electrical resistance. There are two types of
gel, wet or solid. When the gel is solid is more convenient, because there is no need to
clean the used gel off the person´s skin after the device use.

The human heart is a very important human organ, which requires high levels of energy for
its correct functioning, it pumps around one thousand times per days, sending blood all
around the body. This organ can be compared to a house, arteries that carry and take out
blood are the aqueduct, the muscles are like walls and the atria and ventricles are the
bedrooms. As any house, the heart requires electric current for its functioning.
Also, it owns some cells called “peacemakers” located in the right atrium, uncharged of
liberate positive and negative charges (as in physics). They give the orders of when muscles
and walls should contract or expand for the blood flow to appear. It is a two times motor
that works mainly with an autonomous system of electricity.

In conclusion, with the defibrillator invention is clearly seen the great progress of recent
times in terms of science and advance. Medicine with scientific help have been discovering
infinite cures and procedures for different kinds of diseases and preventing them. From
other part, it was discovered the big union there is with the heart and all kinds of energy,
without energy, one of the most important organs in human body wouldn’t work with
excellence and could unleash many types of problems. The defibrillator machine is a star
invention and savior of a lot of lives.

Bibliography
 www.nhlbi.nih.gov
 www.heartsaver.co.nz
 www.news-medical.net
 www.linguee.com