Fifteen Facts Every Family Should Know about CPR
- No family can rely on 108 or emergency doctors alone. When someone stops breathing, or the heart stops beating, he or she can typically survive for only 4 to 6 minutes before lack of oxygen can result in brain damage or death. CPR can buy extra time until advanced help arrives by artificially circulating oxygen to the brain.
- Sudden cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death in adults. Most arrests occur outside the hospital. Immediate CPR doubles a person’s chance of survival from sudden cardiac arrest. Over 1.5 million heart attacks occur each year and approximately 350,000 of these people die before ever reaching a hospital.
- About 80 percent of all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur in private residential settings. So being trained to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can mean the difference between life and death of your patient.
- The commonest heart rhythm in sudden cardiac arrest is ventricular fibrillation-the heartbeat becomes very fast and is arrhythmic. The only treatment for it is immediate shock (defibrillation), but CPR can provide trickle of blood to brain and heart and increase the chances of survival after normal rhythm is established.
- If CPR is started within 4 minutes of collapse and defibrillation provided within 10 minutes, a person has a 40% chance of survival. Over 70% of all cardiac and breathing emergencies occur at home when a family member is present and available to help a victim.
- Approximately, 95 % of sudden cardiac arrest victims die before reaching the hospital.
- CPR saves lives. Statistics show that the earlier CPR is initiated, the greater the chances of survival. In fact, it is estimated that 100,000 to 200,000 lives of adults and children could be saved each year if CPR were performed early enough.
- CPR is not just for heart attacks! Approximately 10 million adults and children suffer disabling injuries at home each year, resulting from accidents which may require CPR.
- Some of the common causes of “sudden death” that may require CPR include:
- Electric Shock
- Heart Attacks
- Drowning
- Severe Allergic Reactions
- Choking
- Drug Overdose
- Suffocation
- The number 1 killers — a combination of heart attacks and accidents — claim a life every 10 seconds in India.
- One in five men and women aged 45 and above (20 % of adults) have had a heart attack or stroke. Approximately, 50% of all heart attacks occur in people under age 65.
- One in ten people have the opportunity to use CPR in their lifetime.
- One thing you need to remember is, in case of an adult he or she always needs a shock to the heart as soon as possible, because they have most likely suffered from a heart attack.
- In case of infants and children, it is rarely a heart attack. They mostly need air, because as we all know, the young ones tend to put anything and everything into their mouths and proceed to choke on it.
- After sudden cardiac arrest Brain Damage Time Table….
0 Minutes Breathing stops. Heart will soon stop beating 0-4 Minutes Clinical Death 4-6 Minutes Brain Damage Possible 4+ Minutes Biological Death 6-10 Minutes Brain Damage Likely 10 + Minutes Brain Damage