Here's an interesting article with EFR ramifications

[ScubaTexan]

No mouth-to-mouth required in new CPR rules - Heart health - MSNBC.com

What do you think?

 

[headsqueeze]

The patient in the article more than likely did not suffer collapse from cardiac arrest. Rather, he probably just fainted.

As to the AHA, these days it's hard to tell if the orgainzation is following science or politics or money - end of rant.

Here is a followup on the history of CPR - History of CPR - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lastly, there are very few successful survivors of CPR. I've told my nurse and hospital staff many times that if I collapse, don't start CPR.

 

[scubadale]

Just a note

The new recommendation also points out that for respiratory distress, i.e. near drowning, rescue breathing is still necessary.

A child who collapses is more likely to primarily have breathing problems — and in that case, mouth-to-mouth breathing should be used. That also applies to adults who suffer lack of oxygen from a near-drowning, drug overdose, or carbon monoxide poisoning. In these cases, people need mouth-to-mouth to get air into their lungs and bloodstream.

 

[headsqueeze]

Scubadale's point is right on; if you want to give someone the best chance of survival around the water - clear the airway and get them breathing. Few unconcious cases I attend in the ER and hospital are primarily cardiac related. Every unconcious individual must be given respiratory support. ABC - it's the first (and second) of the three for the unconcious victim.

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

The patient in the article more than likely did not suffer collapse from cardiac arrest. Rather, he probably just fainted.

As to the AHA, these days it's hard to tell if the orgainzation is following science or politics or money - end of rant.

Here is a followup on the history of CPR - History of CPR - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lastly, there are very few successful survivors of CPR. I've told my nurse and hospital staff many times that if I collapse, don't start CPR.

I agree. CPR is useful for the very young or for people with acute, traumatic events with cardiopulmonary arrest, like electrocution, choking or drowning. The average out-of-hospital arrest from cardiac disease in the elderly rarely survives with CPR --- even in-hospital resuscitation is often pointless. Most "saves" on the news are, as you point out, fainting or vagal bradycardic episodes that would resolve on there own. In reality, most CPR "heroes" are actually well-meaning but misguided people who end up cracking the ribs of some poor schook who passed out in front of them.

On the scientific side, there have always been those who believed that hypoxic low flow states are worse than anoxic zero-flow states, in that the former (CPR) case generates more free radical injury than simply letting an arrested patient lie there untouched. In other words, it may be better to just let an arrested person stay in a zero flow state until professional help arrives, provided that help comes within five or ten minutes.

When I worked in ERs, I can't tell you how many times I have had people brought in by ambulance crews (in the days before such crews were true EMTs or similar experts), the patients cold and in rigor mortis --- yet people were still pumping on their chests! The drive to get the general population "certified" in resuscitation techniques mystifies me. In the heat of an emergency, the average person can't tell a fainting spell from a person who died last Thursday, and no amount of afternoon mannekin work is going to change that.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.