Defibrillators
A defibrillator is a medical device that is used to deliver a high voltage electric shock to the patient's heart for the purpose of preventing an arrhythmia or to restart the patient's heart after cardiac arrest. The most commonly used defibrillator in a health care environment is called a manual external defibrillator. These defibrillators tend to be equipped with the ability to perform an electrocardiogram, for the purpose of measuring the patient's heart activity before performing defibrillation. They may also feature the ability to monitor additional patient parameters such as blood pressure, oxygen saturation and end tidal Co2. In addition to manual defibrillators, automated external defibrillators are commonly used in situations where there are no personnel trained in the use of manual defibrillation. These devices have the ability to analyze a patient's heart rhythm and can therefore be used by a layman. Due to this they are commonly found in public settings such as schools and businesses.
