CPR Not as Effective as Chest Compressions Alone

patiwat writes "A Japanese study detailed in the New York Times has found that people suffering from cardiac arrest were more likely to recover without brain damage if rescuers focused on chest compressions rather than on rescue breaths. Some experts advised dropping the mouth-to-mouth part of CPR altogether. Interrupting chest compression to perform mouth-to-mouth ventilation might do more harm than good if blood flow to the heart was not properly re-established, a researcher from Tokyo's Surugadai Nihon University Hospital said. According to the article, 'More than 300,000 Americans die from cardiac arrest each year. Roughly 9 out of 10 cardiac arrest victims die before they get to a hospital — partly because they do not get CPR.'"

Comments

Do it right!

[Aladrin]

So, let me get this straight: It's better to focus on chest compressions, but only if you're doing the breath part wrong.

Duh!

Likewise, it's better to focus on standing in the shallow part of the pool if you are doing the swimming wrong, assuming you don't want to drown.

The real focus of the article is actually that the breath part is hard to do correctly, and apparently a lot of people get it wrong. Instead of a single person trying to do it all, someone should help by doing the breath (if they know how!) while the other works on compressions.

I've never been able to figure out why if there's a crowd of people there, 1 person ends up doing all of it while the others get in the way. One of those idiots standing their with their mouths open should bend down and help.