Jargon Buster

Ablation is a medical procedure that involves the removing or altering cardiac tissue that is complicating cardiac rhythms.

An AED responder kit is designed to prepare a patient for defibrillation. The kit includes nitrile sterile gloves, tuff-cut scissors to cut through clothing, a razor to clear a patient’s chest of hair, cleaning wipes, dry tissues a res-cue mask for hygienic mouth-to-mouth and a foil blanket to keep the victim warm after the defib unit has been used and removed from their body.

An algorithm is a formulated code that enables defib units to analyse a patient’s heart rhythm and treat cardiac arrest with an appropriate shock.

Arrhythmia is when there is an irregular cardiac rhythm.

Asystole is commonly known as “a flat line”, meaning there is no measurable heart rhythm detected.

Atrial Flutter is usually associated with tachycardia (heart beats over 100 times a minute), an Atrial Flutter is when an unnatural heart rhythm occurs in the hearts atria.

Atrial Fibrillation is the most common of abnormal heart rhythms, often referred to as palpitations. Atrial Fibrillation can often be hard to detect but ECG devices effectively identify the hearts irregularity.

Atrium refers to the two upper chambers of each side of the heart.

Automated External Defibrillators are the full name for defib units, responsible for detecting the need of, and delivery of a therapeutic electrical shock to realign the cardiac rhythm of a cardiac arrest victims heart.