CPR facts

Important CPR Facts that Everyone Should Know

CPR can save a life. It is easy to learn CPR, and everyone should. However, the hard fact is about 70 percent of Americans may not be able to help during a cardiac emergency either due to their lack of training in CPR, or their training has lapsed significantly. Another statistic puts the situation in perspective. Nearly 80 percent of all cardiac emergencies occur at home. In other words, CPR is most likely to save the life of someone you love.

The first step in training for CPR is to not be afraid of a cardiac emergency. An effort to perform CPR can only help the situation. If you see an adult who has stopped breathing or is breathing abnormally and not responding, place a call to 911 and perform the CPR to revive the patient.

Why do you need CPR training?

Cardiac arrests are more common that most people would like to believe.

Each year almost 300,000 sudden cardiac arrests occur out-of-hospital, and about 80 percent of them occur at home.

Many of the victims do not have a known history of heart disease or other symptoms, and appear healthy.

Sudden cardiac arrest is different from a heart attack. Sudden cardiac arrest takes place when the heart’s electrical impulses become irregular, causing the heart to stop beating all of a sudden. A heart attack takes place when the blood supply to the heart muscle is interrupted partly. A heart attack may lead to a cardiac arrest.

Who are you likely to save with CPR?

Since 80 percent of all cardiac arrests occur at home, chances are that you can save the life of a loved one if you learn CPR. It could be a parent, a child, a spouse, or a friend. The risk of cardiac arrest among African-Americans is nearly twice that of Caucasians, and their survival rate is about half that of Caucasians.

Why perform CPR?

An effective CPR provided by a bystander immediately after sudden cardiac arrest can improve the chances of the victim’s survival by two to three times. However, only about one-third of cardiac arrest victims receive CPR from a bystander. The survival rate of people who suffer a cardiac arrest outside the hospital is less than eight percent. More than 12 million Americans receive CPR training annually from the American Heart Association or others like the Red Cross.

A Brief History of CPR

The known history of CPR dates back to the 18^th century. One of the first recorded instances regarding the medical recognition of CPR is linked with France in 1740, when the Paris Academy of Sciences made a formal recommendation of mouth to mouth resuscitation for victims of drowning. Nearly three decades after this recommendation, the Society for the Recovery of Drowned Persons was formed in 1767, which became the first organized endeavor to perform human resuscitation to save people from sudden and unexpected death.

Towards the end of the 19^th century, the techniques to perform human resuscitation had come to include chest compressions. In 1891, the first ever documented external chest compression was performed on humans by Dr. Friedrich Maass. This was quickly followed in 1903 by the first successful use of chest compression in human resuscitation, which was reported by Dr. George Crile. The very next year, Dr. Crile performed the first American case of closed chest cardiac massage.

Half a century later, evidence emerged that expired air was enough to maintain the required oxygenation. This was proved by James Elam in 1954. The Red Cross started offering CPR training in the mid 1950's. In 1956, James Elam along with Peter Safar invented the technique of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The very next year the technique was adopted by the American military to revive victims of cardiac arrest. Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) was formally developed in 1960. It began with a program launched by the American Heart Association to acquaint doctors with closed chest cardiac resuscitation. The program eventually led to CPR training for the general public.

The CPR Committee of the American Heart Association came into being in 1963, which was led by Cardiologist Leonard Scherlis. The American Heart Association officially recommended CPR in the same year. An ad hoc CPR conference was convened in 1966 by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. The world’s first mass public training in CPR was held in 1972, which was conducted by Leonard Cobb over a period of two years.

A program to provide telephonic instructions in CPR was launched in Washington in 1981. The program made use of emergency dispatchers to deliver instant directions while the EMT personnel were on their way to the scene. Dispatcher-supported CPR is now the standard of care for dispatcher centers in America.