凯莉·费雪(Carrie Fisher)悲惨的英年早逝让我们反思了新闻媒体在报道医疗新闻方面的糟糕表现。最初的报告从TMZ标题是《凯莉·费雪在飞机上突发心脏病》。如果人们像通常做的那样,将“心脏病发作”等同于更精确的医学术语“心肌梗死”,那么这肯定是TMZ在诊断方面做得过火了。从他们的报告来看,费舍尔似乎是心脏骤停;事实上,这一术语在文章正文中使用了。那么为什么不在标题中使用这个词呢?也许大规模心脏病发作听起来更戏剧化。“大量”这个词似乎和“心脏病发作”很自然地联系在一起。试着想出其他与“massive”契合的短语。巨大的攻击?巨额债务,可能吗? Few phrases roll off the tongue as well as “massive heart attack.” But most of the time when used by the media this phrase is not at all accurate. Rather it is a catch-all term to indicate something serious related to the heart has occurred.
当然,我们不知道凯莉·费雪到底发生了什么,这也不关我们的事,但没有任何信息表明她患有严重的心肌梗死,而不是原发性心律失常事件,如心室纤颤或室性心动过速。作为一名心脏病专家,见过这类事件的次数多得令人沮丧,推测发生了什么是可能的。她可能遭受了心脏骤停心律不齐的与心脏心室突然出现的不正常心率有关的外行人和媒体常将此称为心脏“停止”。当心脏的泵血停止或减少时,实际上心脏在快速或无序地跳动,以至于不能有效地泵血。如果不使用电除颤器进行快速校正,就会导致猝死。
在凯莉·费雪的案例中,心肺复苏是在飞机还在飞行时实施的。目前尚不清楚从心脏骤停开始到实施CPR之间经过了多长时间。从报告中很难判断
如果使用了AED在飞机上或在飞机着陆后才尝试除颤。我们知道她再也没有恢复意识很可能是由于血液循环长期中断而导致脑死亡。
凯莉·费雪香烟的吸烟者而且使用可卡因至少在《星球大战》时期是这样。吸烟和吸毒引起的心脏病会不会是她猝死的原因?世界杯欧洲预选赛积分榜最近可卡因等毒品的使用可能是一个因素吗?我们不知道,但如果她的家人认为公开她的死亡情况是合适的,这可能有助于教育公众和新闻媒体了解心脏病的一些细微差别,以及“大规模心脏病发作”和心脏骤停之间的区别。
最后,用谷歌Ngrams来检查一些心脏术语是很有趣的。的谷歌NgramSite是一个搜索引擎,可以用来查询多年来出版的数千本书中单词或短语的出现频率。它可以帮助确定某些短语,如“心脏病发作”或“心脏骤停”是什么时候第一次被使用,以及什么时候开始流行。的Ngram at the top of this post of the phrase “massive heart attack” shows the rise in popularity of this phrase over the last 50 years. The Ngram below compares the terms “heart attack,” “myocardial infarction,” “sudden death” and “cardiac arrest.” It is interesting that “sudden death” is a term that has been used without much change in frequency since the year 1800. “Myocardial infarction” and “cardiac arrest” both entered the literature around 1930-1940. “Heart attack” dates back to around 1920, but has become more and more popular, while the medical term, “myocardial infarction” seems to be less used recently. Curiously, although the phrase “heart attack” has been around since the 1920s, it is only since 1960 that the phrase “massive heart attack” has become popular. One wonders why. These kinds of results are open to all sorts of interpretation: I’ll leave that to the reader as an exercise. But I encourage you to try Ngrams out yourself, on any subject that interests you. The results are often fascinating.
大卫·曼恩是一位退休的心脏电生理学家,他的博客是EP工作室.
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