Research Fellow

The majority of deaths from myocardial infarction occur soon after the onset of symptoms. The mobile scheme described allows intensive care to commence in the patient's own home or at the site of infarction and thus reduces the interval between the onset of symptoms and the initiation of intensive care. Monitor-ing is continued during transport and following admis-sion to the hospital coronary care unit. The major impact of therapy on the mortality from acute myocardial infarction will result from the detec-tion and correction of rhythm disturbances. THE MAJORITY of deaths from acute myocardial infarction occur soon after the onset of symptoms. Sixty per cent of the deaths occur within 1 hr of the onset of symptoms (Yater et al., 1948; Bainton & Peterson, 1963). A survey in Belfast in 1965 showed that over 40 % of the deaths from acute myocardial infarction occur within the first hour (Fig. 1, curve A) (McNeilly & Pemberton, 1968). The majority o