CPR - to breathe or not to breathe, that is the question

Todd Fraser on 25-08-2010

Recently 2 further studies have been released which appear to justify adopting Compression only CPR. Current guidelines however are yet to be modified in accordance with these findings. You are teaching on a community BLS course this weekend - what will you tell the participants? It raises an interesting question of when to make changes to your practice - advocating compression only CPR goes against the Australian Resuscitation Council guidelines as they are at present. Read Neil Orford's review of the recent literature here - http://bit.ly/b1lBSL - and tell us your thoughts. Are we ready to abandon E.A.R. in out of hospital cardiac arrest for adults?

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Todd Fraser wrote 10-22-2010 09:35:42 pm
The American Heart Association have just released their new guidelines for resuscitation. The major change is that the guidelines now recommend a C-A-B approach rather than the traditional A-B-Cs. This reflects recent evidence cited by Neil in his review, arguing that oxygen remains in the circulation for some period of time after cardiac arrest begins, and the traditional approach wastes valuable time. The guidelines also now recommend a compression only technique for untrained laypersons.

This approach seems to conflict with the mantra of "idiot-proof" that the guidelines have adopted in recent years. I wonder if it will last.

Lastly, atropine has finally been dumped from the guidelines for asystole and PEA arrests.

shailesh bihari wrote 09-06-2010 04:07:53 pm
taking the argument further
in one of the study protocols patients were intubated after 3 rounds of shock/CPR in VF cardiac arrest
what should one do in ICU when we see VF on monitor, and not reverted after 1st shock and 2 minutes of CPR , should we shock again or delay shock /CPR with intubation?