July 30, 2008­–When the American Heart Association recommended in April that all 2.5 million children taking stimulant drugs for ADHD should have an electrocardiogram (ECG) to screen for hidden heart problems (because a small number of these children die from abnormal heart rhythms), it came as an unpleasant surprise for parents.

The SCA Foundation announced the You Can Save a Life^TM National SCA Awareness Campaign for Schools and hosted a meeting with program partners during the Emergency Cardiac Care Update (ECCU) in June. The immediate goals of the campaign are to raise awareness about the prevention and treatment of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) and motivate stakeholders to establish screening programs and CPR-AED training and response programs in schools. The long-term goal is to help create a new generation of students who will be ready, willing and able to help whenever and wherever SCA occurs.

When a high profile figure does something unusual, we all seem to hear about it. When they leave us we wonder why, and start to question our own vulnerabilities. On June 13, 2008, a not so unusual event occurred at the NBC studios in Washington DC. You may be surprised to learn that the same event occurs hundreds of time per day, and yet it seems sudden and shocking. It is called a sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) and kills more people in this country than lung cancer, breast cancer and AIDS combined.

There is a definite, tangible benefit to the media attention this tragic loss has occasioned. It is the awareness of sudden cardiac arrest. The more the media relays the story of Tim Russert’s collapse, the more the public becomes aware. SCA has been the nations’ number one, “silent, serial killer” for too long already.

July 24, 2008­–LOS ANGELES­–Television star Kelsey Grammer, best known from “Cheers” and his sitcom “Frasier,” nearly died after suffering sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) last month, he told U.S. showbiz news program “Entertainment Tonight.”

Grammer, 53, felt chest pains while paddle-boarding with his wife in Hawaii, where they have a second home, and was taken to hospital, where he was found to have suffered a heart attack that led to cardiac arrest.

July 17, 2008–MARBURG, Germany-- Resuscitated cardiac arrest patients treated in an ICU who leave the hospital without severe neurological disabilities may expect a reasonable quality of life over the next five years, a German study found.

"We believe our study is the first to demonstrate that patients who leave the hospital following cardiac arrest without severe neurological disabilities may expect fair long-term survival and quality of life for reasonable expenses to the healthcare system," Dr. Graf's team concluded.

July 11, 2008­–When combined with the conventional cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), extracorporeal life support (ELS) can double the survival of adult hospital patients in comparison with CPR alone. These results were released on July 7, 2008 in The Lancet.