The last five decades have seen the pharmaceuticals; surgical procedures and medical devices undergo some remarkable advances. As a result of this, it comes as no surprise that many people are always looking for more invasive care compared to what they used to get previously. Similar to the way that doing nothing when you are sick is something quite hard; people are also finding it hard not to try out their maximum when they have different treatments that they can choose from. But the truth of the matter is that doing more does no good and can at times be even much more harmful.

Saving a life with life support

In US, emergency medical services get dispatched immediately it appears that a person could be in some kind of trouble. While there are many people who die due to cardiac arrests happening out of hospital, steps being taken in this field can mean a difference. For instance, basic life support that is taught in CPR class can involve bag valve masks being used as well as automated external defibrillators as well as cardiopulmonary resuscitation, all which can end up saving the person’s life.

A lot more is actually involved with advanced life support which actually requires the services of a trained paramedic. A trained provider is capable of putting the patient in the endotracheal breathing tubes, deliver cardiac arrest drugs that are sophisticated and even start intravenous lines while at the same time defibrillating the patients manually. For most of the part, there has been a vague assumption that advanced life support is by far much better compared to basic life support. The assumption has actually been so much such that where the two options are available; people will always prefer advanced life support.

Advanced life support isn’t always better

But in a recent study, this assumption of advanced life support being better has been questioned. To ascertain this, a team of researchers examined various Medicare patients who had been billed to receive basic life support or advanced life support before being admitted to hospital between 2009 and 2011. The researchers actually examined the rate at which the patients who had survived got discharged from the hospital and what happened months later.

In their findings, their reported that about 13 percent of the patients receiving basic life support survived in comparison to the 9 percent of those who got advanced life support. There were more patients who got basic life support that managed to live 90 days after being discharged and it proved that the basic life support patients had neurological outcomes that were much better. In their conclusion, the researchers noted that advanced life support doesn’t always mean more benefits when compared to the basic life support and can even have some worse outcomes. In fact, advanced life support was blamed in the study for slowing things down and distracting patients from getting the basic life support that could be much better.