Cardiopulmonary resuscitation

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a set of actions that should be done if a person stops breathing, or if their heart stops.  The goal of CPR is to force blood and oxygen to keep flowing through the body.  Every part of the body needs blood and oxygen to survive.  CPR does not start a person's heart again.  However, it can keep pushing blood and oxygen around the body long enough that sometimes, it can keep the body from getting damaged by not having enough oxygen.

There are different types of CPR.  Regular people, who are not medical professionals, can do these things:
 Realize that a person is not breathing or has suddenly collapsed
 Call 911 (or whatever the emergency telephone number in their country is)
 Do chest compressions (press hard and fast in the middle of the chest, on the breastbone, until help comes; this will force blood to keep flowing to the body)
Many medical professionals can also do these things:
 They can use a machine called a defibrillator to give an electric shock to the heart.  This will not restart a heart that is not beating.  However, if the heart is beating in a way that is not normal, the electric shock may make the heart go back into a normal rhythm.
If the heart is not beating at all, they can give medicines (like epinephrine or atropine) to restart the heart. 
 If the heart is not beating in a normal rhythm, they can give medicines to make it start beating in a normal rhythm again
 They can force oxygen into a patient's lungs, in a few different ways:
 With a bag-valve-mask (by placing a mask over the patient's face and squeezing a bag that is attached and is filled with oxygen)
 By placing a tube down a patient's throat to deliver oxygen more directly (this is called intubation).
 They can use an artificial pacemaker to do the heart's job, and force the heart to beat at a certain speed and rhythm

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Statistics
Time is very important.  Each minute that passes before CPR is started lowers the chance of survival by about ten percent. If CPR starts within the first three to five minutes, and a defibrillator is available, the chance of survival can be as high as 50%, or even 75% (That is: one out of two, or three  out of four survive). In European countries, emergency services take about eight minutes or more to arrive, once they have been alerted. A victim's survival therefore largely depends on other people who are there and what they do. A quick call to emergency services, and a quick start of basic CPR, especially defibrillation, can double to triple the chance of survival - with adults and children.Handley AJ, Koster R, Monsieurs K et al.: European Resuscitation Council guidelines for resuscitation 2005. Section 2. Adult basic life support and use of automated external defibrillators. (2005) Resuscitation. 67 Suppl 1:S7-23. PMID 16321717Kuisma M, Suominen P, Korpela R: Paediatric out-of-hospital cardiac arrests: epidemiology and outcome. Resuscitation (1995) 30:141–150 PMID 8560103

 Related pages 
 Life support system
 Defibrillation
 Troponin

 Related pages 
 Automated external defibrillator (AED)

 References 

Further reading 



 Other websites 

 CPR: NHS Choices
 How to resuscitate a child: NHS Choices
 Dhaka Thai Spa

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Category:Emergency medicine
Category:Intensive care medicine