Emergency care: Medical emergencies

Medical emergencies are conditions that endanger an individual's life or threaten to leave permanent disability; they require immediate medical care.

As a nursing assistant, you need to know how to recognize these life threatening situations and follow your facility’s policy to provide proper care and first aid until help arrives.

Let’s go over some of the most common medical emergencies.Heart attack, also known as myocardial infarction or MI, is a condition that develops when an artery that supplies the muscular wall of the heart gets blocked by a blood clot, stopping the normal blood flow.

The part of the muscle that is supplied by the affected artery is now deprived from the oxygen and starts to die, losing its ability to contract.

Smaller damage can decrease the heart’s ability to pump out blood, while extensive damage can lead to cardiac arrest.Signs and