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Study finds home defibrillator is no help

Consumers are unlikely to benefit from buying household versions of emergency equipment meant to revive victims of sudden heart seizures, according to long-awaited results from a clinical trial announced recently. The equipment, automated external defibrillators, has been marketed to health-conscious consumers for its ability to provide life-saving jolts of electricity to people whose hearts have stopped beating, or are beating so chaotically and rapidly that they could die within minutes. The report in The New England Journal of Medicine noted that the devices clearly save lives in hospitals, emergency vehicles and in busy public settings like airports and casinos where trained employees are on duty but due to operational lacunae is not as useful in a domestic set up.