A heart attack is a serious medical emergency that occurs when blood flow to the heart muscle is blocked. This interruption prevents the heart from receiving enough oxygen, which can damage or destroy part of the heart muscle. While heart rate, measured in beats per minute (BPM), is an important indicator of bodily function, its changes during a heart attack are not always straightforward.
Understanding Heart Rate Measurements
Heart rate, or BPM, indicates the number of times your heart beats in one minute. This measurement reflects how efficiently your heart is pumping blood throughout your body.
For most adults, a typical resting heart rate falls between 60 and 100 beats per minute. A lower resting heart rate indicates better cardiovascular fitness. Many factors can influence an individual’s heart rate, including age, physical activity levels, body temperature, emotional state, and certain medications.
Heart Rate Fluctuations During a Heart Attack
There is no single BPM that definitively signals a heart attack, as heart rate responses can vary significantly. During a heart attack, the heart’s electrical system can be affected, leading to different rate changes. The specific area of the heart experiencing reduced blood flow, as well as an individual’s overall health and medications, can influence these variations.
One possible response is tachycardia, where the heart beats abnormally fast. This can occur as the heart attempts to compensate for reduced blood flow or due to the body’s stress response to pain and anxiety. Certain types of heart attacks, like ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), can often lead to an elevated heart rate.
Conversely, some individuals may experience bradycardia, a slower-than-normal heart rate. This can happen if the heart attack damages parts of the heart’s electrical conduction system. Additionally, people taking medications that slow heart rate, such as beta-blockers, might maintain a lower pulse even during an attack. Heart attacks can also trigger irregular heart rhythms, known as arrhythmias, where the heart beats too quickly, too slowly, or with an erratic pattern. It is important to remember that heart rate alone cannot diagnose a heart attack.
Recognizing Other Heart Attack Signs
Beyond heart rate changes, other symptoms are often more indicative of a heart attack and require immediate attention. The most common symptom is chest discomfort, which can manifest as pressure, squeezing, fullness, or pain in the center of the chest, lasting more than a few minutes or recurring. This discomfort can sometimes feel like indigestion.
Other common signs include:
- Pain or discomfort spreading to other areas of the upper body, including one or both arms (often the left), the back, neck, jaw, or stomach.
- Shortness of breath, with or without chest discomfort, sometimes accompanied by gasping for air.
- Breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea, vomiting, or lightheadedness.
- For women, more subtle or atypical symptoms such as unusual fatigue, extreme weakness, or brief, sharp pain in the neck, back, or jaw, in addition to or instead of chest pain.
Taking Immediate Action
If you suspect a heart attack in yourself or someone else, calling emergency services immediately is important. Delaying medical attention can be life-threatening or cause permanent heart damage. Emergency medical personnel can initiate treatment en route to the hospital.
While waiting for emergency services to arrive, the person should sit down, rest, and remain calm to reduce strain on the heart. If aspirin is available and there are no known allergies or contraindications, slowly chewing and swallowing an adult-size tablet (300mg) may be beneficial, as aspirin helps thin the blood. If the person becomes unconscious, unresponsive, and is not breathing or lacks a pulse, immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) should be started. Early medical intervention significantly improves outcomes.