From Andy Shawcross
When a person feels faint, or has indeed fainted, first aiders are trained to raise that person’s legs so as to increase the blood flow to the brain – and the recovery is quite dramatic. While an inflatable “shock sheet” sounds like a good idea (13 September, p 24), would there also be some benefit in simply raising a persons legs whilst administering CPR?
Mark Wilson writes:
• There has been some research into raising the legs or tilting the bed during CPR. This increases venous return (blood coming back from the extremities) but does not increase your systemic vascular resistance, so blood still flows in the arteries, since they are high-pressure vessels and are not compressed. Therefore, it doesn’t help divert arterial blood to the head and heart.