Researchers report released recently showed that advanced life support that the paramedics give to victims of cardiac arrest could end up costing lives instead of saving them. A good CPR availed by the paramedics or the emergency medical technicians could be the best treatment that the patients can get.

However, it is important that the patients are taken to the hospital within the shortest time possible.

The researchers found out that basic life support offered a longer survival in comparison to advanced life support. This has led to the questioning of why there is an assumption that highly advanced pre-hospital medical care can improve the outcomes compared to basic life support in cases of cardiac arrest. More than 380, 000 people in the US alone actually get emergency medical services after suffering a cardiac arrest. During this condition, the heart actually comes to a stop altogether and about 90 percent of the victims don’t survive to get discharged from the hospital. What this study shows is that about 50% of the patients are capable of surviving when compared to those who get advanced life support.

The basic life support usually given to cardiac arrest patients includes :

  • CPR
  • Early defibrillation- This involves shocking the heart in efforts of making it start beating again
  • Basic airway management
  • Rapid transport

Emergency medical technicians or paramedics can give basic life support and this essentially aims at ensuring boosting the chances of the patient recovering.

From basic life support, the next alternative for this is essentially the advanced life support that mainly focuses on airway management and this usually involves a tube being placed into the throat of the patient through a process known as intubation. In addition, doctors also give drugs that aim at stimulating the heart. Worth noting is the fact that only ambulances that are staffed with paramedics can give advanced life support to patients. The good thing is that these paramedic ambulances are usually very common in suburbs and cities.

Advanced life care

In the study findings, the researchers were shocked to find that advanced care usually results in worse outcomes which are essentially county interactive in some way. The study shows that more patients who had received basic life support treatment were able to go back home in comparison to those that received advanced life care. In addition to this, the chances that patients who had received basic life support treatment will get poor mental functioning were much less compared to those who got advanced life support as per the findings of the study. And besides the benefit of better outcomes, you will be thrilled to note that the cost of basic support is far much less that of advanced life support.