What is the rationale for defibrillating asystole?
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To stimulate the heart's own nerve pathway system. Asystole is a flatline and in order to get the heart stimulated, joules are applied to " jump start' the heart/shock the heart to adjust the nerve impulses into the right pathways. The SA node is the internal pacemaker of the heart, which helps regulate a "normal" rhythm. Once this fails,then the AV node should take over. It is a complex system but, defib.during Ventricle fibrillation is necessary in an attempt to save a life and redirect the " current"of the hearts' electrical impulses.
Asystole is NOT a shockable rhythm.
there is no rational for defibrilating asystole.
ACLS guidelines refer to asystole as a rhythm that is willnot respond to electricity
Asystole is indeed a non shockable rhythm, but often in the ER after we have tried everything we shock anyway...because you just never know and they are unfortunately dead anyway. So its not really rational--more of a last ditch effort to try & save a life.
YEARS ago, the reasoning was that "maybe it's fine Vfib".
As others have said, there is NO indication for shocking asystole.
Good luck with that.
Defib is stopping the heart...if it's in v-fib or v-tach, great, you can stop it so it can restart, hopefully in a normal rhythm, but why stop an already stopped heart?
It will probably do more damage, passing electricity through an already damaged muscle.
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