CHICAGO — Hands-only CPR doesn’t just eliminate the “yuck factor.” A new study shows it can save more lives.
It’s the first large U.S. study to show that more adults survived cardiac arrest when a bystander gave them continuous chest presses to simulate a heartbeat, compared with traditional CPR with mouth-to-mouth breathing.
“Anyone who can put one hand on top of the other, lock their elbows and push hard and fast can do this. No risk, no fear of causing harm,” said lead author Dr. Ben Bobrow of the Arizona Department of Health Services in Phoenix. “We want to take away all the reasons bystanders do nothing when they witness another person collapse.”
With hands-only CPR, advocates say, potential rescuers don’t have to contemplate what for some could be the “yuck factor” of putting their mouth to an unconscious person’s mouth and breathing for them.
Standard CPR with mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions is still best for very small children and victims of near-drowning and drug overdose, experts say, instances where breathing problems probably led to the cardiac arrest. Nonstop chest compressions work better for adult cardiac arrest because most people take too long to do mouth-to-mouth, said senior author Dr. Gordon Ewy of the University of Arizona’s Sarver Heart Center.
The study appears in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association.