For the past 50 years, CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) has primarily meant mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and pushing on the chest to keep blood pumping. But, it has always been something that scared me a bit and apparently I am not the only one. I totally understand the importance of it, but statistics show that only 1 out of every 3 people that need CPR actually get it before the ambulance arrives. Why? Because there is a small number of people trained in CPR and even those people are reluctant to use it.
Now CPR is getting an update that makes it easier for everyone to do it. The American Heart Association said two years ago that it was okay to do CPR without the mouth-to-mouth part. They got the backing of the American Red Cross and now, two studies have shown that the hand’s only approach is just as good as the full thing.
The studies were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The researchers studied 3,200 people in Washington, London, and Sweden who had suffered cardiac arrest and received CPR. Some got the full version and some got the hand’s only version. People who called 911 about the cardiac arrest were walked through how to perform either type of CPR by the EMTs.
The studies showed that the hand’s only CPR worked well. Dr. Thomas Rea, who led one of the studies, noted that the real plus was that reluctant people who were instructed on how to give the hand’s only CPR were more likely to do it.
Most people don’t want to do the mouth-to-mouth part and most may not be coordinated enough to do the mouth-to-mouth without interrupting the chest compressions. Chest compressions are easier to instruct over the phone and medical officials think the ease will result in more laypeople performing CPR in crisis situations.
Some researchers think the chest compressions are more important than the mouth-to-mouth anyhow because it circulates the blood and can improve oxygen until the EMTs arrive.
Rea pointed out that hand’s only CPR is better than no CPR at all and said, “What we’re learning is that when someone collapses from cardiac arrest, you cannot make things worse. You can only make things better. You can only improve the chances of survival if you kneel down and pump the chest.”