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News
Chest Compressions Key to CPR
For years, people taught to perform emergency cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) have been exhorted to remember their ABCs — short for airway, breathing and circulation. But new recommendations — published in the journal Resuscitation by a team of emergency medicine specialists — advise dispatchers who give telephone instructions to untrained and often panicked bystanders to skip A and B, and go straight to C — chest compressions.
Research and experience have found that some people are unwilling to perform CPR if it involves breathing into a stranger's mouth, notes lead author Lynn Roppolo, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and part of the team that issued the new recommendations. Studies also found that dispatchers wasted valuable time trying to instruct callers in how to position the victim's head, pinch off the nose and administer rescue breaths. One study reported improved survival when chest compressions alone were performed.
The panel recommended that people who already know how to perform traditional CPR continue to do so, saying it remains the preferred method for those with proper experience. For the squeamish, compressions alone are better than nothing.
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