Saving Lives Anywhere, Anytime
Reported November 15, 2005
By Heather Kohn, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent
DALLAS (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Ninety-five percent of people who go into sudden cardiac arrest will die before reaching the hospital. New research presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions in Dallas this week could improve that dismal outlook.
Presenter Ahamed Idris, M.D., of University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and a member of the American Heart Association Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee, stated the American Heart Association’s (AHA) goal is to double the number of American citizens trained annually in basic life support cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) by 2010. The AHA set out to determine if there is a more efficient way to train people in CPR that would help reach its goal.
Researchers compared the conventional, four-hour CPR course, which many people say they do not have time to take, with a 20-minute video instruction course. Results show the short course is at least as effective as the standard course.
Dr. Idris says CPR performance is a psychomotor skill centered on muscle memory — much like riding a bicycle. He says students taking the conventional course had to think about things more than students taking the shorter course, who seemed to exhibit better muscle memory.
The current model of CPR is watch then do, while students in the experimental video course watched and practiced simultaneously. Dr. Idris says, “Efficiency is doubled.” Also, in the four-hour course, students get between six minutes and 10 minutes of practice time with the mannequin, while in the video course students had 17 minutes of practice time. Also, each student had his own mannequin in the short course, while in the conventional course six students share one mannequin.
Expert reviewers found CPR skills were adequate in 98 percent of people who underwent the standard course and 95 percent of those who took the short course. The difference is so small it could have been do to chance, researchers say.
Results also show six months after training, skill retention was the same for both groups. Researchers say how this new short course may affect or replace the current CPR course is yet to be determined.
The same group of researchers also found a five-minute, automated external defibrillator (AED) course is more effective than the standard four-hour CPR plus AED course. When study participants were tested on a mannequin simulating an unresponsive victim in cardiopulmonary arrest, 97 percent of those taking the short video course correctly applied and used the AED compared to 91 percent in the four-hour group.
In a study out of Norway, investigator Jo Kramer-Johansen, M.D., found automated verbal feedback and prompts from a defibrillator can improve the quality of important measures of CPR performance. Commands such as, “Press faster,” contributed to improved quality of chest compressions emergency responders administered. Commands also told responders how deep to compress, when to resume compressing after pauses, and when and how to ventilate.
SOURCE: Heather Kohn at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions in Dallas, Nov. 13 – Nov. 16, 2005