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FRIDAY, July 25, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- Automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are accurate for use with infants and children suffering cardiac arrest.
That's the claim of a study in the August issue of the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
AEDs analyze heart rhythm and send an electrical shock to the heart to correct abnormal rhythms and restore normal heartbeat.
"AEDs, developed based on adult heart rhythms, were thought to be inaccurate when interpreting rapid heart rhythms of children and too powerful for children," study author Dr. Elizabeth Atkinson, department of emergency medicine, Indiana University, says in a news release.
"But our study puts worries about accuracy to rest and clearly demonstrates this lifesaving technology can differentiate 'shockable' from 'non-shockable' rhythms in infants and small children," Atkinson says.
The study included 203 children, ranging in age from 1 day to 7 years old, who were patients at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The children had a variety of medical conditions including congenital heart defects, asthma, firearm injuries, traffic accident injuries and toxic ingestions.
Among these children, the AED recommended a shock for 72 of 73 heart rhythms later classified as coarse ventricular fibrillation. That's an extremely fast and chaotic heart rhythm that causes cardiac arrest.
The study also found the AED correctly reached a "no shock advised" decision for 1,465 of 1,472 heart rhythm samples later classified as non-shockable by experts who reviewed the samples.
Accuracy of the AED wasn't affected by the placement of the electrode pads. The AED was 99.1 percent accurate with the conventional placement of the pads on the child's chest and 99.4 percent accurate with the placement of the pads on the child's chest and upper back.
Until recently, the International Guidelines for Resuscitation did not recommend the use of AEDs for infants and children aged 1 to 8. But those guidelines were revised this month based on this study and other research.
More information
Here's where you can learn more about heart rhythm problems and treatments.
