Restoring dignity to sudden death.

Sudden death is an uncommon condition. But when it occurs, especially in a young person, the acute loss can generate a substantial amount of grief with a great sense of disbelief. This mysterious and dreadful condition instils much fear and anxiety into the living, and more specifically for family members and friends. Understandably, the apprehension is brought about by the unexpectedness of the event and uncertainty of the consequences. The feeling of uneasiness is largely attributed to the lack of information regarding this condition. However in recent years, several causes of sudden death have been clarified. Treatment modalities have improved and reduced the occurrence of dying suddenly.This book is meant for anyone who wants to know more about sudden death. It aims to diminish its terror by explaining the various conditions that predispose individuals to sudden death and ways which may prevent it from occurring.

This book describes the incidence, mechanisms, pathology, and risk factors related to sudden cardiac death; noninvasive and electrophysiologic evaluation of sudden cardiac death survivors; sudden cardiac death in children; ethical considerations; the nursing process as it relates to modern cardiac life support; basic and advanced cardiac life support practice; nursing diagnosis with pertinent assessment factors and interventions; and much more. As sudden cardiac death continues to be a major health and ethical challenge, this outstanding new book provides the theoretical and practical background nurses need to care for sudden cardiac death patients.

Sudden cardiac death is a global health threat for which we have only partial answers. With growing elucidation of the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms of sudden cardiac death, better patient identification and treatment options are being developed. These include risk stratification paradigms, ICD therapy, pharmacological options, ablative procedures, and other treatments. This book covers many of these options, including defibrillator technology and clinical applications. It also examines pathophysiological pathways and etiologies as well as highlights risk-stratification in ion channel diseases and structural heart disease such as dilated cardiomyopathy.

In 1705-1706, during the War of the Spanish Succession and two years after a devastating earthquake, an ’epidemic’ of mysterious sudden deaths terrorized Rome. In early modern society, a sudden death was perceived as a mala mors because it threatened the victim’s salvation by hindering repentance and last confession. Special masses were celebrated to implore God’s clemency and Pope Clement XI ordered his personal physician, Giovanni Maria Lancisi, to perform a series of dissections in the university anatomical theatre in order to discover the 'true causes' of the deadly events. It was the first investigation of this kind ever to take place for a condition which was not contagious. The book that Lancisi published on this topic, De subitaneis mortibus (’On Sudden Deaths’, 1707), is one of the earliest modern scientific investigations of death; it was not only an accomplished example of mechanical philosophy as applied to the life sciences in eighteenth-century Europe, but also heralded a new pathological anatomy (traditionally associated with Giambattista Morgagni). Moreover, Lancisi’s tract and the whole affair of the sudden deaths in Rome marked a significant break in the traditional attitude towards dying, introducing a more active approach that would later develop into the practice of resuscitation medicine. Sudden Death explores how a new scientific interpretation of death and a new attitude towards dying first came into being, breaking free from the Hippocratic tradition, which regarded death as the obvious limit of physician’s capacity, and leading the way to a belief in the 'conquest of death' by medicine which remains in force to this day.