American Heart Association new recommendation for “hands-only” CPR

This is new from the AHA –

American Heart Association – Hands-Only CPR – Home

When an adult has a sudden cardiac arrest, his or her survival depends greatly on immediately getting CPR from someone nearby. Unfortunately, less than 1/3 of those people who experience a cardiac arrest at home, work or in a public location get that help. Most bystanders are worried that they might do something wrong or make things worse. That’s why the AHA has simplified things.

When an adult suddenly collapses, trained or untrained bystanders – that means a person near the victim – should:

1) Call 911
2) Push hard and fast in the center of the chest.

Studies of real emergencies that have occurred in homes, at work or in public locations, show that these two steps, called Hands-Only CPR, can be as effective as conventional CPR. Providing Hands-Only CPR to an adult who has collapsed from a sudden cardiac arrest can more than double that person’s chance of survival.

Here are the details –

Hands-Only (Compression-Only) Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation: A Call to Action for Bystander Response to Adults Who Experience…

And here’s a NY Times article –

CPR Can Help, Even With No Training – New York Times

The recommendations, being published in the April issue of Circulation, are based on new studies of CPR techniques. They update advisories published in 1997 and 2005.

Numerous studies in animals, and five others in humans, have convinced experts that hands-only CPR from an untrained bystander is usually as effective as CPR with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation performed by a person trained in the technique.

There may be several reasons. Rescuers performing traditional CPR take longer to start than those who use hands only, maybe because it takes more time to prepare, intellectually and emotionally, for the more complex and intimate procedure. Studies have also shown that bystanders performing conventional CPR interrupted chest compressions for longer than the recommended 10 seconds while doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, resulting in fewer compressions.

Surveys suggest there may be reluctance to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation because of fear of infection, but this is probably a minor barrier. More commonly, CPR-trained bystanders cite panic and fear of causing further harm as reasons for inaction. Such fears are unwarranted.

“If you do nothing, the person will die,” Dr. Sayre said. “And you can’t make them worse than dead.”