Simpler and Easier CPR Guidelines Will Hopefully Save More Lives
It's estimated that over 300,000 Americans die every year from sudden cardiac arrest. It's also estimated that the survival rate, outside of a hospital or an emergency room is a dismal 6%. The American Heart Association is advocating new steps to performing CPR which they believe will drastically raise the survival rate. These new CPR guidelines call for chest compressions only.
Over the years medical professionals have been frustrated that more people don't initiate CPR. It's been found that people don't start CPR because they're afraid that they'll do the breaths incorrectly or that they might hurt the person doing compressions, potentially breaking or cracking ribs. And, people are also reluctant to put their mouth on the mouth of a stranger.
If you want to know how to administer CPR you can visit the American Heart Association web site and see online CPR videos which explain the new CPR guidelines of hands-only. You may want to contact the American Heart Association or the American Red Cross to see when they are offering training classes in your local area.
The steps to performing hands-only CPR are easy. If you have experience in the old CPR method you already know how to position your hands on the chest. You will place the heel of your hand in the center of the chest between the nipples and put your other hand on top of that hand and intertwine your fingers. Now, press down "hard and fast". The chest should compress 1 1/2 to 2 inches. Don't worry about injury to the ribs. Keep pumping. The guidelines call for 100 pumps per minute, uninterrupted. If you are in a public area that has an automatic external defibrillation (AED) use it after one minute of unsuccessful CPR.
These new steps to performing CPR came about from years of observation by emergency personnel that victims of acute cardiac arrest would actually wake up during chest compressions. It seemed they had enough oxygen in the blood that if the blood was kept circulating it could prevent brain damage. They also found citizen rescuers took an average of 16 seconds to give the two mouth-to-mouth breaths and they felt this was valuable wasted time.
This new easier hands-only CPR method will certainly save lives. Now there is no reason to hesitate to perform CPR. You may save a life.
This article is provided courtesy of http://www.handsoncpr.net
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/
Added: April 28, 2008
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