17 Jul AHA calls for renewed focus on CPR quality and monitoring
Posted at 13:29h
in Uncategorized
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation quality varies widely between systems and locations, prompting the American Heart Association to emphasize key components to improve resuscitative efforts, according to a consensus statement published in Circulation.
In the statement, the AHA emphasizes five critical areas of high-quality CPR:
- Minimize interruptions to chest compressions. Compressions generate blood flow and should be delivered more than 80% of the time the patient doesn’t have a pulse.
- Provide the right rate of compressions — 100 to 120 per minute are optimal for survival.
- Ensure compressions are deep enough — at least 2 inches for adults and at least one-third the depth of the chest in infants and children.
- Do not lean over the patient’s chest and allow the chest to fully recoil so as not to decrease blood flow.
- Avoid excessive ventilation, giving no more than 12 rescue breaths per minute, with the chest just visibly rising, so pressure from the breath does not slow blood flow.