More Things You Should Know About CPR

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CPR or cardiopulmonary resuscitation is a basic life support procedure that is used when a person’s heart and lungs has suddenly stopped. Most people have seen CPR only in movies or television shows. Rarely can you see it in an actual scene of emergency, unless you work in a hospital or have attended a first aid training course. When performing CPR, you will need to keep the airway open, provide rescue breathing and compress the heart to force blood circulation. The goal of this basic life support is maintain the ABC of life:

  • Airway
  • Breathing
  • Circulation

For a successful CPR, all of these three ABCs of emergency care must be ensured. Artificial ventilations would be useless unless airway is open. Similarly, artificial ventilation would be useless unless oxygenated blood is CPRcirculated.

Remember that bleeding can prevent adequate and proper blood circulation. So, if the person’s blood volume is deficient, such as when there is active, profuse bleeding, then the CPR will not be effective. It can only speed up the person’s blood loss, potentially leading to death. Therefore, if there is active bleeding such as a severed major artery, it is essential to stop the bleeding first before initiating CPR.

Quick Reminder: The information posted on this blog on CPR is for information purposes only. Learn when and how to provide effective CPR by taking a St Mark James first aid and CPR class near you.

How CPR works?

The main goal of CPR is to restore circulation of oxygenated blood by applying external chest compressions. This process is also known as Artificial Circulation.

Artificial circulation is produced by laying the victim in a firm, flat surface and applying external compression over the midline of the chest wall. This causes a change in the pressure within the chest cavity that help pump the blood throughout the entire body. During compression, blood is forced to the lungs for oxygenation then distributed to the systemic circulation especially in vital body organs such as the brain and the heart. Once pressure is released, the elastic nature of the chest cavity allows it to return to its normal position resulting in sucking action that causes the heart to fill in with blood.

Take note that, CPR is only 30% as effective as normal heart action. This is the reason why rescue breathing and, if possible, supplemental oxygen is critical for all patients suffering from cardiac arrest. As much as possible, the artificial breathing must provide at least 90% oxygen to ensure that vital organs of the body are well oxygenated. However, even if supplemental oxygen is essential, CPR should not be stopped or delayed.

When to apply CPR?

First, the person should be in cardiac arrest or the heart has stopped beating completely or too weakly to pump blood properly. Cardiac arrest may arise from a number of reasons such as heart damage, severe bleeding, shock or use of certain drugs. CPR is also recommended when the person’s heartbeats are uncoordinated and irregular that it does not efficiently circulate blood, also known as ventricular fibrillation.

In case the victim is still breathing at the time the heart stops beating, he or she can go into a respiratory arrest within 30 to 45 seconds. Normally, patients needing CPR are unconscious and unresponsive. There is no breathing and pulse or pulse is weak, slow and irregular.

Just like other first aid skills, CPR requires hands on experience to master the procedure. To learn more about CPR, you should attend basic first aid training course (more information) offered by organizations such as St Mark James.

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