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Action Points

Explain to patients who ask that cardiopulmonary resuscitation, if performed early after a witnessed cardiac arrest, may be life-saving in a small but significant percentage of cases.
Explain that this study and others suggest that out-of-hospital CPR with chest compressions only may be more effective at preventing brain damage in patients who survive than CPR in which compressions alternate with mouth-to-mouth ventilation.
Point out that on the basis of this study, the investigators and the editorialist feel that cardiac-only resuscitation is the preferred approach to resuscitation for adult patients with witnessed out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, especially those with apnea, shockable cardiac rhythm, or short periods of untreated arrest.

Thanks for the short version.

BTW, I just checked out your homepage. He looks like "Daddy" on The Dog Whisperer. Beautiful boy!

This is interesting. 30 years ago I was the Chief of Paramedics and Training for what was then one of the largest pre-hospital ALS providers in the country. We worked with our medical directors to keep pretty good stats on how we found cardiac arrest patients and what we being done for them on arrival.

The strangest thing we came up with was that smokers stood a much better chance of surviving than did non-smokers. Our sample was relatively small and our methods were certainly not scientific, but we were really surprised at that odd finding.

I always just assumed it was because the systems of the smoker were accustomed to decreased O2 levels and the loss of a bit more wasn't as catastrophic.

Let me hasten to mention that 30 years ago out-of-hospital cardiac arrest wasn't good for you, smoker or not!