New method of CPR may save someone’s life
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Oct. 28, 2013 PLYMOUTH VOICE.
Without oxygen, irreversible brain damage starts to occur within 3 to 5 minutes.
The American Heart Association has changed its guidelines and now recommends that everyone, untrained bystanders and medical personnel alike, begin CPR with chest compressions and in the event of witnessed cardiac arrest, wherein you see or hear someone suddenly collapse, chest compressions should be done with minimal interruptions.
Bystanders who perform chest-compression-only CPR instead of traditional CPR with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, rescue breathing, save more lives, a study shows.
Chest-Compression-Only CPR doubles the chances of survival for someone suffering a primary cardiac arrest. Some 383,000 people in the U.S. suffer cardiac arrests every year, and only about 10 percent survive.
Without oxygen, irreversible brain damage starts to occur within 3 to 5 minutes.
CPR alone is unlikely to restart the heart; its main purpose is to restore partial flow of oxygenated blood to the brain and heart. The objective is to delay tissue death and to extend the brief window of opportunity for a successful resuscitation without permanent brain damage. Administration of an electric shock to the subject’s heart, termed defibrillation, is usually needed in order to restore a viable or perfusing heart rhythm.
Without a heartbeat, circulation slows to a halt. Blood no longer flows to the organs and the brain is the first one to suffer. In normal times the brain, which constitutes 2 percent of our body mass, consumes about 20 percent of the oxygen the body takes in. After 10 seconds without oxygen, the brain’s functions slow. Without oxygen or signals from the brain, other organs begin to break down. Diaphragm muscles no longer contract and release to bring in air. The kidneys stop filtering blood. At the same time, an elaborate chain reaction triggers a breakdown in cells throughout the body.
A person’s life can slip away within minutes and every minute is critical.
|News Plymouth Michigan
Video: University of Arizonia
