About 30,000 people sustain a cardiac arrest outside hospital in the UK each year.
Although rare, cardiac arrests do occur in dental practices and dental staff may need to defibrillate the patient. Therefore, the Resuscitation Council (UK) has recommended that every dental practice should have immediate access to an automated external defibrillator (AED).
An AED is a sophisticated, reliable, safe, computerised device that can deliver defibrillatory shocks when appropriate to a victim in cardiac arrest. Simple to use, it provides voice and/or visual prompts to guide the operator in its use.
The AED that we now have as part of our resuscitation kit at the Minster Dental Centre is a semi-automated machine. Once the pads are positioned on the patient it analyses the ECG, advises that a shock is required, charges up automatically and prompts the operator to press the ‘shock button’ to defibrillate the patient.
As part of our annual training at the Minster Dental Centre we are given update training on the AED from our in-house First Aid Instructors Vicki Jones and Julie Mayers. They are part of the MDC Hygiene team but are also fully qualified to provide First Aid Training which also includes AED and oxygen therapy training.
