Online CPR Certification Blog

How family bystanders coped when witnessing CPR

Relatives are more likely to take in the idea of a losing a loved one should they be present at the scene when the CPR is being performed. A lot of people who are present when a CPR procedure is being performed to resuscitate a loved one are said to be better off. This is mainly because they’ll at least have the ability to take in the thought of having lost a loved one should the procedure fail.

According to a recent consensus statement that came from the American Heart Association, over half a million children and adults get cardiac attacks annually. The figures further states that only 15% or less of persons affected make it through the fatal experience. This alone made it one of the deadliest public health issues being faced by people in the United States.

The saga surrounding the ‘Why Do CPR?’ editorial

There is no doubt that CPR is a very important procedure when it comes to saving the life of a person having cardiac arrest. It’s believed that such people are either dead or on the verge of death. Every minute counts and that why the AHA wasted no time in moving swiftly to refute claims from an editorial called ‘”Why Do CPR?”

‘Ah, ah, ah, ah, Stayin Alive Stayin Alive’ x2 sung the Bee Gees, a popular music group formed in the 1950’s. Little did they know that this song would not only be more than just a fan favorite, but also a tune that would be used to save people suffer having cardiac arrest.

The death rate resulting from patients who received in-house cardiopulmonary resuscitation has increased. The same negative effect has been portrayed in a drop on the rate of survivors being released from hospitals after going through CPR procedures. This was reported by the William J. Ehlenbach (University of Washington) and colleagues.

It came to the knowledge of researchers that children who suffer in-hospital cardiac arrests are often deprived of some benefits when exposed to a much longer cardiopulmonary resuscitation period. The research took a study of 3,419 children to prove the matter. Of that population, 28% were able to survive until they were released from hospital. 16.6% of these patients who survived had been receiving the CPR for more than 35 minutes.

A meta-analysis was done on three separate dispatcher-assisted CPR with some involving mouth-to-mouth ventilation, while others without. According to Peter Nagele, (MD of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis) CPR that only used chest compressions was seen to improve the chances of the patient’s survival by 22%. This represented a 2.4% absolute increase in survival.

Administration of mouth to mouth procedure has sidelined many people who are just a few minutes away from saving the life of a person whose heart has abruptly stopped. In their efforts to address such concerns, in 2010, American Heart Association changed its standards in advocating for the hands- only CPR.

According to a Japanese study, there is a higher chance of cardiac arrest survival when a by-stander uses chest compression cardiopulmonary resuscitation. It was also observed by Takuiwami, (MD, PhD, of the Kyoto University Health Service in Kyoto, Japan) and colleagues that there was 40.7% chance of survival of the out-of-hospital patients living independently from external help.

A 5 year observational analysis on more than 4000 cases of out of hospital cardiac arrests showed that the patient had a 60 percent chance of surviving when bystanders provided the simpler hands on CPR method. This eliminated the need for interrupting chest compressions with mouth to mouth CPR rescue breathing, reported Bentley Bobrow, of Arizona Department of Health Services.