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Recent changes by American Heart Association (CPR)

drivinthattrain

drivinthattrain

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Aug 26, 2012
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What do you think about the new a radical changes to CPR and Basic Life Support?
They have determined that mouth to mouth is not as important as they once thought during CPR and have changed the protocols to One rescue breath followed by 30 chest compressions for every two breaths 2 breaths.
I hold a health care providers CPR instructor card, I believe the little machine; AED (Automated External Defibrillator) Which is extremely easy to learn, although one must pay close attention to detail to make sure all bystanders and partner(s) are not touching patient before a shock is delivered, is the true life saver for people not trained in Advanced Cardiac Life Support. (ACLS)
Their though process is that, if you get the heart beating again and the airway is clear from obstruction then the lungs will follow suit with minimal help, it makes sense, and personally I am surprised it took this long to implement.
Automated External Defibrillators have saved lives in public places. They are the most important tool in (BLS), Should we all have one in our homes? like a smoke detector?
 
It does surprise me that certain life-saving technology hasn't be adapted to home use. Despite many breakthroughs in medicine and the decreasing price of technology, we don't seem to be making much progress when it comes to preventative medicine.

I'm also surprised that things like full-body CT scans aren't part of people's yearly checkup. For some reason, we still like to wait until cancer cells metastasize, tumours grow and illness becomes symptomatic before doing something about it. It's puzzling because the technology is out there.
 
Cyc said:
It does surprise me that certain life-saving technology hasn't be adapted to home use. Despite many breakthroughs in medicine and the decreasing price of technology, we don't seem to be making much progress when it comes to preventative medicine.

I'm also surprised that things like full-body CT scans aren't part of people's yearly checkup. For some reason, we still like to wait until cancer cells metastasize, tumours grow and illness becomes symptomatic before doing something about it. It's puzzling because the technology is out there.
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Because of overall cost blowout from the health budget and potential benefits -v- risks with your full body or parts of your body being exposed to unnecessary radiation. Also, unnecessary further screening and treatment due to abnormalities or false positives being picked up on scanning which aren't harmful to the person. It would also be fairly stressful and anxiety causing for a lot of people to be screened every year in this way (IMO at least).

Medical technology is great but it comes at an economic and personal cost - routine screening mammography is controversial currently because while previously it was thought to prevent advanced cancer and save many lives, now is being seen by some in the community as unnecessary and harmful for the reasons I stated above.

It's a confusing world we live in with regard to medical research and what we should/shouldn't do, but for sure I don't want to be screened for every little possible thing on a yearly basis. I'd prefer to concentrate on things I'm at higher risk of and try to prevent ill health.
 
I've just always found irony in the fact that some of the people in my life who have lived the longest don't lead even close to what is considered a healthy life style. Sometimes it's not so much what you do, but just the luck of the draw.

I think the current state of medical technologies makes it a situation where it's easy to get paranoid. Our ability to identify has increased, but our understanding of the implications and ability to respond to what is found has not grown as much. It's just a transitional phase, but that's always kind of tough to realize when you are in the middle of it. </$0.02>
 
Miss_vanilla said:
Because of overall cost blowout from the health budget and potential benefits -v- risks with your full body or parts of your body being exposed to unnecessary radiation. Also, unnecessary further screening and treatment due to abnormalities or false positives being picked up on scanning which aren't harmful to the person. It would also be fairly stressful and anxiety causing for a lot of people to be screened every year in this way (IMO at least).

Medical technology is great but it comes at an economic and personal cost - routine screening mammography is controversial currently because while previously it was thought to prevent advanced cancer and save many lives, now is being seen by some in the community as unnecessary and harmful for the reasons I stated above.

It's a confusing world we live in with regard to medical research and what we should/shouldn't do, but for sure I don't want to be screened for every little possible thing on a yearly basis. I'd prefer to concentrate on things I'm at higher risk of and try to prevent ill health.
Click to expand...

You're right about radiation being a concern and false positives costing a lot of money. It just saddens me a little that we're not to the point where we can minimize the risk and cost to the point where it does make sense to step into a machine for a few minutes each year. Obviously three things need to happen. The technology needs to be more reliable, safer and cheaper. Once this happens, I fully expect that part of our yearly checkup will be getting a full-body scan done. In my mind, the stress is a non-issue when compared with possibly dying of cancer.

I guess I just see this disconnect, where so much has changed in medical technology, but family practice medicine has remained pretty much the same for what seems like decades.
 
^^ The way you've described it sounds much less stressful (a few minutes every year given safety, reliability etc) and would make a lot of sense. I guess right now I don't see the point for the whole population when the risks might outweigh the benefits.

I'd for sure prefer to be diagnosed at a really early stage than not but right now, when I have screening scans done due to a family history, I have 3 things done which take 3 hours or so, including waiting for the results then have to go somewhere else for another test (MRI). I'm a bit over it. If it was one test that'd be great.

I'm probably not the best person to comment on this anyway as I'm a hypochondriac at the best of times!
 
Health care is in a sad state. im a Paramedic. In Emegency Medicine, transport issues (rural areas)
Medicare and Medicaid determine what they will pay regardless the bill, cant fight the govn. for a bill.
So, new policy states we must transfer to closest hospital...PROBLEM
not all hospitals have orthopedics/surgeons cardiologists etc..
without violating HIPPA laws, a person named "BOB" was transported to the closest hospital yesterday in cardiac arrest
I worked the code, had him stabilized....ten minutes after he was in ER he coded again and died
Had he been taken 20 minutes further he would have been in a hospital that would have had a cardio/surgeon
instead of a young nervous ER doctor trying his best

Example: on a 4,000 bill, govenment will may pay 400
that is why we are under staffed, under payed, and cant protect our comunities
 
The British Heart Foundation has just run this ad campaign with Vinnie Jones in called 'hands only CPR' - "no kissing, you only kiss your missus on the lips"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILxjxfB4zNk

Compress the heart to the beat of 'Stayin' Alive'

As someone else said it makes sense regarding the heart pumping O2 around, and 'kiss of life' is daunting to administer and may have put people off having a go.
 
Pretty sure they just wanted to sell more (new) books to people (i.e. healthcare providers) having to get this BLS cert.

It seems like they make changes about every 5 years. They also did away with the "look, listen, and feel", believing that it was wasting too much essential time.
 
I think it's a bit of both really. The financial incentive is no doubt there, but also, I do agree that a lot of the changes that have been made are more efficient. So overall I suppose I view it as a good thing. (And it's by no means as money hungry as a lot of things observed in the medical community, for example the tactics used by pharmaceutical companies.)
 
The action of compressing the chest causes air to be pumped in and out of the lungs. We will also have some oxygen in our lungs when our heart stops beating. If you stop compressions, perfusion falls, so oxygen supply to vital organ fails. The "kiss of life" is also not hugely effective; often people don't form a good seal. There are studies showing hands-only CPR is as effective as traditional CPR (will find sources later, just on way to work) before you even take into account people being squeamish and not fancying giving the "kiss of life".

1 per second has been shown to be the most effective compression rate (Stayin' Alive rocks, haha) as it allows time for the heart to fill. Any faster and you are risking not pumping anything around, any slower and oxygen delivery falters.

I'm trained in intermediate and advanced life support too, and we will use a bag and mask if we have one - with a good seal, accurate monitoring, good training and plenty of practice, supplying air too is beneficial; also, for intermediate/advanced life support you're keeping the person going for longer, rather than just until an ambulance comes. You can also connect oxygen to the bag and mask, and it prevents rebreathing of air.

The ABC (air, breathing, circulation) approach should still be taken if you see a casualty; there has been some debate around this, but for now it is still best practice and is taught in all the resus courses (in the UK anyway!) This means you look for obstructed airway first, then check breathing. Lay people are not usually advised to check for a pulse as it can be tricky to palpate, especially if it is weak and thready, and if someone isn't breathing then soon their heart will stop. It's also often used to triage casualties - the person who's airway is obstructed will die sooner than someone who is bleeding.

I'd like to see automatic defibs in homes too, and all public places of course..
 
^ LOL, that is a rather good hook to get people interested in learning something useful. I approve.
 
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