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Physical activity, time of awakening, and other possible triggers of sudden cardiac death

  • Chapter
Triggering of Acute Coronary Syndromes

Part of the book series: Developments in Cardiovascular Medicine ((DICM,volume 170))

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Abstract

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is one of the most prominent disorders in Western industrialised societies, afflicting at least 300,000 individuals each year in the United States alone [1–3]. Recent analyses of several register sites of the MONICA (Monitoring of Trends and Determinants of Cardiovascular Disease) project of the World Health Organisation [4–6] demonstrate that approximately 25% of all patients with an acute coronary event die within the first hour after onset of the event (Figure 1). For these patients — victims of SCD — there is usually no adequate immediate medical treatment available. The MONICA project is a large international collaboration in over 20 countries to measure trends in cardiovascular mortality and to assess the extent to which these changes are related to changes in risk factors and medical care [4–6]. Since the study sites register all cardiac events within predefined populations, including hospitalized patients with myocardial infarction and prehospital cardiac deaths, this project allows assessment of the overall sequence of hospitalization and mortality (Figure 1).

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Authors
  1. Stefan N. Willich
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  2. Hans-Richard Arntz
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Epidemiology, Social and Preventive Medicine, Humboldt University of Berlin, Klinikum Charité, Berlin, Germany

    Stefan N. Willich

  2. Institute for Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, Deaconess Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA

    James E. Muller

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© 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Willich, S.N., Arntz, HR. (1996). Physical activity, time of awakening, and other possible triggers of sudden cardiac death. In: Willich, S.N., Muller, J.E. (eds) Triggering of Acute Coronary Syndromes. Developments in Cardiovascular Medicine, vol 170. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1577-0_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1577-0_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-7205-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-1577-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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