Online CPR Certification Blog

Hands only CPR is still very popular

According to the researchers, these findings support statements made by American Heart Association together with other groups that compression only CPR is still a comparable alternative to traditional CPR technique whether chest compressions are alternated with the mouth to mouth resuscitation. The American Heart Association has since 2008 been recommending hands only CPR in case a person collapses suddenly and stops breathing. Bystanders are thus advised to perform the hands only CPR involving steady, strong chest compressions at 100 compressions per minute. This is unless the bystander is confident in his or her ability of performing conventional CPR.

The researchers said that the reasoning is because hands only CPR is actually much easier for the person to learn and also remember. In addition, people are more inclined to offer hands only CPR because there is no mouth to mouth involved especially if it is a stranger. Moreover, studies taken recently have shown that the hands only CPR is equally as effective as traditional CPR in case of heart problems. The cardiac arrest involves the hear stopping to pump blood to the body which can be as a result of breathing problems, drowning or drug overdose where CPR involving rescue breaths can also be applied.

However, according to these results that the researchers published in the well known journal Resuscitation, they also overlook the fact that in spite of which CPR technique is used the chances of the patient surviving a cardiac arrest without a significant damage to the brain is still very low. The researchers used national data of over 55, 000 adults in Japan who suffered a cardiac arrest in the presence of a witness. In their findings, t percent of these patients who got CPR from bystanders and got paramedic treatment within 15 minutes were able to survive the condition with favorable neurological outcome.

Survival rates of cardiac arrest victims

The research findings also showed no significant difference between people receiving conventional CPR and people who received hands only CPR, which respectively stood at 7.1 and 6.4 percent. This means that those who only sustained moderate brain damage could still manage to perform routine daily chores on their own. The cardiac arrest victim who received no bystander CPR, but got paramedic treatment was represented by 3.8 percent. Despite the fact that hands only CPR only showed a small advantage, bystanders are still advised to perform it instead of the traditional resuscitation approach.

The researchers also noted that more often than not, paramedics are only able to reach cardiac arrest victims after 15 minutes. Even though the study still showed that survival rates are still low regardless of which CPR technique is used, the good news is that there have been significant changes over the years.