New ways to survive cardiac arrest

[NepoZnati]

New ways to survive cardiac arrest

...After running successful laboratory trials, Ewy spoke to emergency-services directors in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Missouri. They were intrigued by his findings and agreed to promote the use of compression-only CPR among people in their states. They also implemented a protocol for their paramedics and firefighters that emphasized giving chest compressions with minimal interruptions to keep the patient's blood circulating.

The results were remarkable: Not only were survival rates for people who got only compressions just as good as those for people who got traditional CPR, they actually were better. Why was it so effective? Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation supplies oxygen, which we need continuously. As it turns out, our bloodstreams contain plenty of oxygen at any moment. Even if we stop breathing, our oxygen levels remain normal for quite a while. If we do stop breathing, however, the sole way to make the oxygen circulate is by having someone pump our chests.
...

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/21/cardiac.arrest.parade/index.html

 

[NepoZnati]

For young mom, new CPR beat back death

..."We said it's hard to do a lot worse than 97 percent of the people dying, and so we revamped everything from how we track cardiac arrest, to how we train the public to do CPR and how we train dispatchers to give CPR instruction," said Dr. Ben Bobrow, who oversees emergency services for the Arizona Department of Health. "What we think right now is at the very early stages of cardiac arrest, when someone initially collapses, the really important thing is to just get blood moving though the body, and that's by doing rapid, forceful, uninterrupted compressions." If Kathie Harden was going to survive, Scott's CPR would need to work for her. Nearly 10 minutes without a heartbeat, she was already technically dead.
...

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/14/cheating.death.harden.cpr/index.html

 

[NepoZnati]

Revised CPR method helps save Arizonans

... Until three years ago, Arizona's success rate in cases like this was no better than most of the country. This past month, however, physicians in the state reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association that a new regimen by paramedics has tripled the success rate, to more than 5 percent. Among patients whose collapse from cardiac arrest was observed, long-term survival went from 4.7 percent to 17.6 percent.

In a bold departure from standard practice, paramedics in most Arizona cities do not follow the guidance of the American Heart Association. Instead, they follow a protocol that was developed at the University of Arizona's Sarver Heart Center, largely by Dr. Gordon Ewy.

Even after cardiac arrest, Ewy said, there's enough oxygen in the body to feed the brain and keep a person alive for several minutes. But that air helps only if someone compresses the heart to circulate blood. In traditional CPR, rescuers alternate 30 chest compressions with two long "rescue breaths." Paramedics are trained to start by checking the airway, and insert a breathing tube at the start of resuscitation. These extra steps, said Ewy, waste precious time.
...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/03/31/moh.cpr/index.html

 

[LondonMedic]

New? We've known about this since October.

 

[VentMedic]

This has been around for at least 2 years. It was mentioned in the 2005 AHA guidelines and expanded on in 2008.

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3023366

 

[NepoZnati]

Of course, it is new to me and somehow it was a new thing to my instructors... On first beat when I mention this and ask for his opinion, one of them dismissed all of that with nasty comment about firefighter's imagination (to put in mild words)!? I needed to print this from the CNN Health Desk for him to get me serious.

P.S.
Thank you for the link, VentMedic.

 

[VentMedic]

Here's several more articles:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=compressions+only+CPR&hl=en&as_sdt=2001&as_sdtp=on

Google Scholar is a decent search engine.

 

[DrankTheKoolaid]

re

This has actually been talked about and proven in the European sect since 2002. Remember that the AHA hardly does anything ground breaking and most new medical insight comes from the European union, which the 2005 AHA guildlines were adapted. It was actually suggested for the 2005 guidelines to do compression only CPR and it's my understanding the AHA did not adopt it in fear it would exhaust responders to quickly which would lead to poor compressions.

 

[mycrofft]

OK we have three big fat cut and pastes. Comment?

........................................................

 

[FLEMTP]

I have a new way to survive cardiac arrest...


Just dont go into it in the first place... 100% survival rate... i'll be awaiting my award lol....B)