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Mariasofia Paparo, a 28-year-old Italian professional swimmer, is dead due to a heart attack, according to Swim4life Magazine, a site with which Mariasofia collaborated. In her career she has achieved regional victories and medals.
On April 28, Mariasofia would have graduated in Navigation Sciences and Technologies at the Parthenope University of Naples. The University, through social media, said: "We express our participation in the pain of family and all of her friends."
Cardiac arrest and possible causes
The most common cause of cardiac arrest is coronary artery disease or heart disease.
Less common causes include major bleeding, lack of oxygen, very low potassium, heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, sudden cardiac death, physical trauma to heart tissue, electrocution, shock, sepsis, systemic inflammatory response syndrome, multiple organ failure, poisoning, overdose, drug or drug side effect, dehydration, malnutrition, hypothermia, hyperthermia, strenuous exercise or even an extraordinarily excessive emotional state.
In addition, several hereditary disorders can cause it, primarily the long QT syndrome. Prevention includes not smoking, healthy physical activity and maintaining a correct body weight. Treatment of cardiac arrest includes cardiopulmonary resuscitation and, if a shockable rhythm is present, defibrillation.
An implantable cardiac defibrillator can be placed to reduce the chance of death from recurrence. In the United States, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest occurs in about 13 of every 10,000 people per year, for a total of about 326,000 cases.
In the hospital, cardiac arrest occurs in an additional 209,000 individuals. The onset of cardiac arrest is often instantaneous, with no clinical signs or warning symptoms. In some cases the patient may experience symptoms referable to the clinical condition that caused the arrest: palpitations, dizziness, dyspnoea, chest pain.
Objectivity in cardiac arrest is characterized by the absence of the central pulse, by loss of consciousness, and by a series of clinical signs that appear after a variable period of time: mydriasis, skin pallor or cyanosis, agonal breathing, sphincter incontinence , relaxation of the skeletal muscles.
The evolution of cardiac arrest towards irreversible biological death depends critically on the time that elapses between the primary event and the implementation of the assistance maneuvers. The brain is very sensitive to the anoxia deriving from the arrest of circulation: in a few seconds there is loss of consciousness, while after about 4 minutes there is irreversible damage.
The heart is less sensitive, but heart activity also deteriorates within minutes. If cardiopulmonary resuscitation did not lead to the resumption of cardiac electrical activity, biological death would be reached in a few minutes.