Adults Who Collapse Need Chest Compression (CCR), Not CPR
March 12, 2008
From Daniel J Denoon, Webmd.com
For adults who collapse after cardiac arrest, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is dead.
A new lifesaving technique, cardio-cerebral resuscitation, is much more likely to save lives than the old cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR technique, an Arizona study shows.
It’s a big change. Instead of using their mouths to give the “breath of life,” rescuers should use their hands to keep blood moving to the hearts and brains of cardiac arrest victims, says Bentley J. Bobrow, MD, medical director of Arizona’s emergency services system and an emergency physician at Mayo Clinic Hospital, Scottsdale.
“It is not cardiopulmonary, but cardio-cerebral resuscitation — you need to feed the brain, not the lungs,” Bobrow tells WebMD. “That is why the emphasis is on getting the blood flowing and not interrupting it, even for ventilation.”
Stopping chest compressions — even for mouth-to-mouth emergency breathing — wastes precious time.
“When that person collapses, your hands are their heart,” Bobrow says. “If your hands are not on their chest, they have no heartbeat.”
