Well-meaning paramedics may kill with CPR -study

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Well-meaning paramedics may kill with CPR -study

Last Updated: 2004-04-06 9:12:13 -0400 (Reuters Health)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Paramedics may be losing cardiac arrest patients

by trying to resuscitate them too vigorously, researchers reported on

Monday.

They found that some ambulance crews giving cardiopulmonary

resuscitation, or CPR, were giving more than the American Heart

Association's recommendation of 12 to 15 breaths per minute.

This may well mean they are doing little good, the researchers report in

Tuesday's issue of the journal Circulation.

" The overall survival rate in the United States from cardiac arrest is

about 5 percent, " said Dr. Tom Aufderheide, a professor of emergency

medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, who led the

study.

" Excessive ventilation may be contributing to that poor outcome. "

His team studied 13 cardiac arrest victims. For the first seven

patients, the average maximum ventilation rate was 37 breaths a

minute -- much, much more than recommended.

Even after retraining, the paramedics still gave 22 breaths a minute to

the next six patients.

One solution might be to use a system that flashes a light every five

seconds to let a rescuer know when to deliver another breath of oxygen,

Aufderheide said.

During CPR, the chest is compressed, raising pressure and forcing blood

out of the heart and into the rest of the body. When the pressure is

released the chest expands, which creates a slight vacuum inside.

The body needs this vacuum for blood in the veins to return to the heart

most efficiently, said the American Heart Association, which publishes

Circulation. Without it, not as much blood returns to the heart.

" The decreased return of blood to the heart reduces the blood going out

of the heart, and that may decrease the effectiveness of CPR, "

Aufderheide said.

" Medical directors of all systems -- all professional rescuers,

including EMTs (emergency medical technicians), nurses, doctors,

respiratory therapists and anyone else who would do CPR as part of their

profession -- need to get this message: Do not hyperventilate, " he said.

I'll tell you where to go!

Mayo Clinic in Rochester

http://www.mayoclinic.org/rochester

s Hopkins Medicine

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org