Whether or not you’re trained in cardiopulmonary
resuscitation (CPR), you still can help a person who suddenly collapses on the
street, the American Heart Association said on Monday.
The recommendations published in the AHA’s journal
Circulation, emphasized “hands-only” CPR, a simple procedure that does not
involve the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation part of CPR.
“The thing that’s killing people is inaction. You only have
to do two things. Call 911 and push hard and fast on the middle of the person’s
chest,” said Dr. Michael Sayre, an emergency medicine professor at Ohio State
University who headed the
committee that made the recommendation, the Associated Press reports.
This kind of CPR should be taken only for adults who suddenly
collapse, breathless and unresponsive. If the heart stops, the victim still has
ample air in the lungs and blood and compressions keep flowing to the brain,
heart and other organs. Brain deaths begin four to six minutes after a person
suffers sudden cardiac arrest if no CPR or defibrillation is given.
In children’s case, it’s better to use mouth-to-mouth
breathing because they might have breathing problems. Also, the technique
should be used in adults who suffer lack of oxygen from a near-drowning, drug
overdose, or carbon monoxide poisoning. These people need mouth-to-mouth to pump
up air into their lungs and bloodstream.
Hands-only CPR involves uninterrupted chest presses, 100 a
minute, until paramedics take over or an automated external defibrillator is
available to restore a normal heart rhythm. The pressure should be applied to
the center of the chest, between the two nipples of the victim.
“Today in the United States, less than a third of
victims of sudden cardiac arrest get any form of CPR. Anything that would
increase that is bound to save lives. We want the general public to know that
even if they’ve never been trained, they can help victims of sudden cardiac
arrest,” Dr. Sayre said.
About 310,000 adults in the United States die annually from
sudden cardiac arrest that takes place away from a hospital setting, according
to the heart association. Doctors believe that CPR administered by a bystander
could double or triple a person’s chance of surviving.
Nearly 94 percent of sudden cardiac arrest victims die
before reaching a hospital and up to 80 percent of sudden cardiac arrests occur
at home, the AHA said.
The new recommendation for hands-only CPR is an update to
2005 American Heart Association guidelines, which said bystanders should use
compression-only CPR if they were unwilling or unable to provide breaths.
Other heart experts welcomed the new guidelines. Dr. Chris
Barton, acting chief of the Emergency Department at San Francisco General Hospital,
for example, said the latest research on CPR supports the notion that in
the critical minutes before an ambulance or defibrillation device arrives, it is
very important to provide uninterrupted, deep chest compressions.
“You want the chest to go down about 2 inches. I weigh 160
pounds, and when I do this I put about half my weigh into it,” he said,
according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
