Compression-only CPR is official

It's sooner than I expected, but compression-only (or what AHA calls "hands-only") CPR is officially recommended by the American Heart Association. Not in every single instance, but it's the standard recommendation for cases where an adult suddenly collapses. Anyway, more info can be found here.

The more medically-inclined can read the journal article in Circulation announcing the change here .

Now we just need cell phone-sized AED's. Or even better, a cell phone that can double as an AED.

Edit: By the way, this is an old thread about the last time the CPR guidelines were changed significantly. Just reading it over again, it was an interesting thread. Anyway, the last change was at the end of 2005, so changing them again so soon means they thought the results of recent research shows that the benefits of compression-only CPR for lay people is signficant enough change to implement it sooner rather than later.

Arnie,
In December 07 I got recertified in cpr. Red Cross is still teaching compressions and breaths. I was told they will not change for at least a year yet. So yes it has changed, but it depends on the person certified, if that makes sense.

Huck

Can you imagine someone using their phone and suddenly get a shock from H-E-double hockey sticks!!!!

(btw: I'm familiar with AED's...)

That's understandable. Even the AHA-affiliated courses may take quite a while to change just to use up their supply of "old" materials, create new ones, re-train all the instructors, etc. I mean, the next formal review to the CPR guidelines wasn't scheduled for another few years, I believe, so this change in practice is an "off-cycle" event.

I am a ARC Health and Safety Instructor, I'll post something when the standard changes, which I would expect would be at least a year. The curriculum will need to be changed and approved, books ordered, instructor's updated, etc.

not an expert, I'm only asking ... but does this assume that 9-1-1/paramedics are enroute, within x minutes, within an urban area?

Well, not necessarily just "urban" but yes. Going to the other extreme, I've never taken a wilderness medicine course, but I don't believe you are taught to start CPR if you know help is a long, long time away. (This last statement is an important point to get right so someone please correct/clarify if I'm wrong).

I can't find it, but the first news story I read about the change in protocol mentioned a chiropractor in Temecula, California who had already read about compression-only CPR and used it on a guy who collapsed at his gym a couple months ago. He did compression-only CPR for over 12 minutes before help arrived and the guy who collapsed was fine the next day. Impressive--both the result and the effort. (There's no mention of an AED in the article, though, which I assume that the gym would have.)

The important thing is to start early and to keep up those fast, hard compressions to keep the blood circulation going and oxygenating vital organs like the brain and heart. Physiologically, rescue breaths typically take too long to perform and it stops that flow of blood. After giving a couple breaths and going back to compressions, it takes some time for the blood to start flowing again, and every second counts. Psychologically, there's that delay or reluctance that people have about giving mouth-to-mouth, so either CPR is started late or people just don't want to do CPR at all.

I took the Red Cross Wilderness First Aid course last year -- The Boy Scouts are requiring that at least one member of a trek crew must have a current certification in Wilderness FA to go to Philmont or Northern Tier.

Wilderness First Aid does not include CPR - that is a separate course and certification.

There was no blanket statement of 'yes' or 'no' to starting CPR. We did cover when to stop CPR -- when you are too exhausted to continue (as first aiders we are not qualified or trained to pronounce death...)

I found that the majority of the 'Wilderness' part of the course was setting expectations of what sort of expert care you can expect in the 'Wilderness.' Where 'Wilderness' is defined as EMS is more that about an hour away.

We did a lot of scenario work - both play-act and thought experiment - and a number of people in the course had great difficulty with the fact that there are situations where you can't even try to save everyone who is injured.