Anyone can save a life if they
act!
There is a long debate regarding whether CPR
should be provided even if it could be unnecessary.
According to an
article in Health Day News, out of King County, "The
risk that an untrained bystander can do harm by giving
cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, to someone who collapses in
public is almost vanishingly
small, a new study indicates."
Thomas D. Rea, an associate professor of medicine at the
University of
Washington states, "There have been concerns expressed by laypeople and dispatchers
that
doing CPR might cause damage." Rea
goes on to said. "Our study shows that you can
help the person at risk and the chances that you can injure someone who
is not in cardiac arrest are very, very small, and those injuries are not
serious."
Rea and his colleagues used data on 1,700 adults who received CPR in the
King County emergency response system between June 2004 and January 2007.
Rea is program medical director of the King County program. Of those,
55 percent were in cardiac arrest and 45 percent were not. Nearly half
of those not in cardiac arrest received CPR from bystanders.
The
data showed minor problems -- discomfort or injuries in 9
percent to 11 percent of cases -- but only four fractures, three due to
chest compressions administered during CPR, one from repositioning the
individual for CPR.
And while this study did not measure the
benefits of giving CPR even when it eventually turned out to be
unnecessary, "many studies have shown that the odds of surviving cardiac
arrest increase by 20, 30, 100 percent, depending on what study you
look at, when CPR is given," Rea said.
"The key finding here is
that when a well-meaning member of the general public starts CPR and the
victim is not in cardiac arrest, it will probably cause no injury at
all," said Dr. Michael Sayre, an associate professor of emergency
medicine at Ohio State University, and a spokesman for the American Heart Association. "The study reassures me that
rescuers are rarely going to do any kind of injury."
King County
emergency dispatchers use a basic two-question format to determine
whether CPR should be started: Is the person conscious? Is the person
breathing normally?
"If the answers are 'no,' the dispatcher tells
the caller to 'get the victim on a hard surface, on his back, bare the
chest, put the hands in the center of the chest right between the
nipples and then start compressions of one to two inches, counting
aloud,'" Rea said. The dispatcher counts along with the CPR giver, and
the routine continues until the emergency response team arrives.
It
can end sooner if the person getting CPR regains consciousness and
tells the rescuer to stop.
King County is unusually well organized
to handle cardiac emergencies, Sayre said. "My experience is that in
many places, the 911 center is almost too polite," he said. "In
communities like King County, call-takers are aggressive about telling
callers how to do CPR."
There often is uncertainty at the caller's
end of the telephone encounter, Sayre said. "I know there can be
hesitation in terms of training and doing it in person. But this shows
that evaluating the situation quickly and starting CPR will rarely do
any harm."
This article found at http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/heart/articles/2009/12/21/experts-say-cpr-by-untrained-bystander-a-good-idea.html
By Ed Edelson
HealthDay Reporter