First Aid classes | Conventional CPR education efforts should intensify for children

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First Aid classes Conventional CPR
education efforts should intensify for children
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Education efforts to teach bystander CPR should
intensify in minority communities, according to
the lead author of a recent study that showed
Hispanic and African-American children were less
likely to get CPR with breaths, which had
improved survival compared to compression-only
CPR or no CPR. The data indicates that while a
lot of the public health efforts have focused on
Hands-Only CPR, I think that we need to emphasize
that children need conventional CPRand that they
have better neurological outcomes, said lead
author Maryam Y. Naim, M.D., an assistant
professor of critical care medicine and
pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania
Perelman School of Medicine. During the study,
researchers looked at patient records from 3,900
children who had an out-of-the-hospital cardiac
arrest at home or in a public place between 2013
and 2015. A little more than half of the children
taken to the hospital with cardiac arrest dont
get CPR from parents or bystanders.
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The data came from a registry that collects
information on adults and children from more than
two-dozen states. Nearly 60 percent of the study
participants were infants, and about 31 percent
were white. Almost 30 percent were
African-American and nearly 12 percent were
Hispanic. The report showed that bystanders
administered CPR about 56 percent of the time
when white children had a cardiac arrest compared
to about 40 percent of the time for children who
were African-American, Hispanic, or another race
or ethnicity. Children older than 1 year and
African-American and Hispanic children were more
likely to receive compression-only CPR than
conventional CPR. Naim, a cardiac intensivist at
Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, said the
differences by race and ethnicity surprised her
and makes it critical that health care
professionals step up their CPR education efforts
in Hispanic and African-American
neighborhoods. While residents of both Hispanic
and African-American neighborhoods are more
likely to have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest
than white communities, people in those areas are
less likely to get CPR from persons around them.
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According to a report from the American Heart
Association, about 350,000 Americans have a
cardiac arrest every year and about 7,000 of them
are children. The AHA recommends doing
compressions first and then the breathing
techniques in pediatric CPR. Only about a third
of children who have had cardiac arrest receive
CPR, according to previous studies. The number of
children getting CPR is increasing, but still,
again, this is a very low number, Naim said. She
said she and her colleagues will dig deeper into
the data to look at patterns by income, rural and
urban areas and regions. The Oklahoma City Fire
Department offers free CPR education classes.
Instructors review basic conventional CPR
techniques. They also encourage people to give
only chest compressions if theyre reluctant to
give mouth-to-mouth breathing, said Maj. Derrick
Kiel, a certified CPR instructor with the
department.
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Kiel said he and the other instructors reiterate
to participants that conventional CPR is the
preferred technique for children. If we correct
the breathing problem, then we usually also
correct the full arrest, said the longtime
firefighter, who is also a paramedic. Joshua
Koch, M.D. a longtime critical care physician and
co-chair of the CPR committee of Childrens
Health in Dallas, said more research is needed on
CPR in children. Although the survival rates were
known previously, theyre important because
surprisingly, that hasnt been shown before in
this patient population. His message to
pediatricians encourage parents to learn
conventional CPR. You do want to be prepared to
rescue them if they need that, said Koch. Most
of the cardiac arrests occurred in infants. Those
who received compressions-only CPR had a
similarly low survival rate as those who did not
get the potentially life-saving technique.
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In most children, the underlying cause of a out
of hospital cardiac arrestwhich occurs when the
heart stopsis a respiratory problem such as
suffocation from a blanket and choking on food.
The event tends to occur at home and can go
unnoticed for some time. Learn more about First
Aid classes. Bergenfield, NJ, Jersey City, NJ,
Livingston, NJ, and Queens, New York. Source
newsarchive.heart.org
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