Heart Health

[evansk7]

Originally Posted by wolf

What is often not mentioned in CPR classes is that it works less than 2% of the time on a witnessed heart attack.

In fact, it works so rarely that ILCOR just recently changed the way it's taught; we now teach people not to bother finding the "right place" to put their hands, because it just makes them worry about being in the wrong place and then they don't try. In reality with CPR, you're really aiming to keep blood circulating long enough for a defib to arrive with EMS or from somewhere local.

All anyone can do is their best, and hope and hope and hope.

On a more positive note, we're now seeing AED defib units springing up in supermarkets, cinemas, pubs and nightclubs over here in the UK for "layperson" use. There are charities and the like funding them, and the supermarkets are dotting them around all over.

Hopefully, it'll reduce the shockingly high incidence of heart-attack related deaths by a significant margin.