Resuscitation
-
To describe the current evidence on the frequency and nature of cognitive impairments in survivors of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. ⋯ There are few good studies on the frequency of cognitive impairments after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. However, cognitive problems, in particular memory problems, seem common in survivors of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
-
Comparative Study
Validation of a universal prehospital termination of resuscitation clinical prediction rule for advanced and basic life support providers.
Prehospital termination of resuscitation rules have been derived for Emergency Medical Technician-Paramedics providing advanced life support care and defibrillation-only Emergency Medical Technicians providing basic life support care. We sought to externally validate each rule on a prospective cohort of prehospital cardiac arrest patients to determine if either rule could be proposed as a universal prehospital termination of resuscitation rule. ⋯ Implementing the basic life support rule as a universal termination of resuscitation clinical prediction rule would result in a lower overall transport rate without missing any potential survivors. The universal rule would recommend termination of resuscitation when there was no return of spontaneous circulation prior to transport, no shock was given and the arrest was not witnessed by Emergency Medical Services personnel. This rule may be useful for emergency medical services systems with mixed levels of providers responding to cardiac arrest patients.
-
Comparative Study
Effects of BLS training on factors associated with attitude toward CPR in college students.
In order to elucidate the factors for willingness to perform CPR, we evaluated the responses of college students to questionnaires before and after basic life support (BLS) training. ⋯ The proportion of students showing willingness to perform BLS increased after the training. Significant association between "anxiety for infection" and willingness to perform BLS might indicate that those who wish to perform BLS developed their awareness of risk of infection more than the counterparts. For future guidelines for resuscitation and the instruction consensus, the reluctance of bystanders to perform CPR due to the hesitation about mouth-to-mouth ventilation should be reconsidered with other recent reports indicating the advantage of compression-only CPR.