Hands-only Cardiopulmonary has emerged as a new form of resuscitation, which avoids the use of mouth to mouth method. It has become popular, with many people being trained on how to use it. The method, also known as the bystander CPR has made people who were reluctant to learn on the first aid response of mouth to mouth are more comfortable to learn and use the above method. According to a national medical research report, a mere twenty-five percent of the individuals who suffer cardiac arrest receive CPR. The rest have to wait for medical attention from paramedics. Hence, a good number lose their lives. The reason for this was cited as poor CPR education, mainly because people were not comfortable with giving mouth to mouth CPR. The Hands-only CPR has since received a feedback of more people who are willing and dedicated to using it to save lives (Bohm, Katarina, 4). The method is comfortable, quick to learn and is not sensitive in nature.
Hands-only CPR has also been more effective. Medically, a person who experiences cardiac arrest only has six minutes before the consequences are severe. The consequences include damage to various organs that are vital to the body. On other occasions, the victim can immediately lose their lives after the six minutes elapse. Not many people know the magnitude of cardiac arrest. Therefore, the response time for an average person might take long when they have to give CPR. Most people are hesitant on giving mouth to mouth, thus might take a lot of time to respond. In the six minutes, a person is supposed to pump and compress the chest using interlocked hands until the heart beats for up to a hundred beats every minute. The pumping should be rapid, with a break of a few seconds before compressing to allow the heart to fully pump blood and receive oxygen (Travers, Andrew, 4). The compressions are arguably the most important parts of hands only CPR and are determined by the amount of pressure and rapidness of the pumping. The pumping, in essence, will determine how blood will be pumped, and oxygen supplied back to the heart. CPR is applied to victims of breathlessness whose main issue is the lack of oxygen, which is deadly. Once the window has been created for the supply of oxygen, a person can be said to be out of danger.
The method of resuscitation has been proved to increase the chances of survival for individuals by double. Even though, this is the case, it can only be used on adults (Sayre, Michael, 3). Children, often too fragile, might undergo serious damages when taken through the process. The reason is that the people performing it often need to use a lot of strengths, which might be too much for infants and children. Mouth-to-mouth is still the best for children and weaklings. The damage caused on other people can be ignored, but that on children can cause other severe problems in the future since most of their organs and body parts are still weak. In addition, people whose heart conditions emanate from other respiratory diseases are excluded from the benefits of hands only CPR. The method can only be used on individuals to create room for oxygen supply when it has suddenly failed.
The emphasis on hands only CPR has led to the American Medical Response team to organize impromptu training sessions for people in the street, in games and schools. People need to know of the alternative way of saving people’s lives. The training aimed at equipping people on the method, where most were ignorant of it and would probably never use it. Since then, the comparing has attracted a lot of followers who are eager to know about how lives can be saved without the risks posed by mouth to mouth first aid. The idea to teach as many people as possible has been included in social media sites, websites and other internet engines available for users. Furthermore, there are instructional manuals provided to the public on how to do hands-only CPR, which has seen more lives saved (Vaillancourt, Christian, Ian and George, 2). There have been proposals to incorporate bystander CPR into school curriculums as an extra course.
The survival chain for an individual who suffers from cardiac arrest has been extended from the hospital setup, to the routines of daily living. A person can have cardiac arrest when they are in the hospital under Intensive Care Unit or out in the streets while walking. There is, therefore, the need to strengthen the survival chain by teaching emergency response from all angles possible (Bobrow, Bentley, 3). Those have prior knowledge on the use the CPR method can get further training to make their skills perfect. In hospitals, the occurrence of cardiac arrest can be anticipated, or can come as a surprise. They have the mechanisms and to cope with such instances. However, outside of health institution, the only thing that can save individuals from fatal cases of Cardiac arrest is the knowledge on performing emergency CPR. In such cases, the hands-only method has proved to be reliable. There have been suggestions to put training sessions on video for continuous training (Bobrow, Bentley, 2). According to the American Heart Association, continuous improvement of the hands only method can close the gap between the hearsay application of the knowledge and actual performance.
Most people are scared of performing bystander CPR because of they are, usually, afraid of their liability in cases where the victims lose their lives or incur injuries. However, the law protects the public when they act on goodwill. Good Samaritans are exempted from liability to encourage the public to offer help more often and save lives. The injuries that emanate from this method of resuscitation are, therefore, most suitably handled by the paramedics.
Works cited
Sayre, Michael R., et al. "Hands-Only (Compression-Only) Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation: A Call to Action for Bystander Response to Adults Who Experience Out-of-Hospital Sudden Cardiac Arrest A Science Advisory for the Public From the American Heart Association Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee." Circulation 117.16 (2008): 2162-2167.
Bobrow, Bentley J., et al. "The Effectiveness of Ultra brief and Brief Educational Videos for Training Lay Responders in Hands-Only Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Implications for the Future of Citizen Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Training." Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes 4.2 (2011): 220-226.
Bohm, Katarina, et al. "Survival is similar after standard treatment and chest compression only in out-of-hospital bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation." Circulation 116.25 (2007): 2908-2912.
Vaillancourt, Christian, Ian G. Stiell, and George A. Wells. "Understanding and improving low bystander CPR rates: a systematic review of the literature." CJEM 10.1 (2008): 51.
Travers, Andrew H., et al. "Part 4: CPR overview 2010 American Heart Association guidelines for cardiopulmonary resuscitation and emergency cardiovascular care." Circulation 122.18 supply 3 (2010): S676-S684.
Bobrow, Bentley J., et al. "Chest compression–only CPR by lay rescuers and survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest." Jama 304.13 (2010): 1447-1454.
