When a person is stricken with cardiac arrest, what is done for them in those first few minutes can mean the difference between life and death.

Now doctors at the famous Mayo Clinic in the US have found a system of helping to keep people alive that is different to traditional cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and even more effective, while being easier to learn and easier to do.

With CPR you take turns breathing into a person’s mouth and also doing chest compressions.

With the new system, called continuous chest compression resuscitation (CCR), you do not breathe into the patient’s mouth, you just continuously pump their chest, above their heart slightly to the left of their sternum (breast bone).

A recent study that compared CCR with standard CPR in patients demonstrated that both survival and percentage of survivors with good neurological outcome were significantly improved in those who underwent CCR.

Without some type of CCR or defibrillation, brain death starts to occur just four to six minutes after cardiac arrest. Further, a person’s chances of survival fall 7-10 percent for every minute delay until defibrillation if no CCR is provided.

What makes CCR so important is that it helps maintain blood flow to the heart and brain in the minutes before an electric shock from a defibrillator can get the heart pumping again. These minutes often dictate whether a person will live or die.

CPR has been the ‘gold standard’ in emergency heart care since the 1960s. It combines mouth-to-mouth breathing with chest compressions that, when provided immediately, have been said to double or even triple a person’s chances of survival after sudden cardiac arrest.

However, this newer research suggests the mouth-to-mouth breathing component of standard CPR may be counterproductive because it takes critical time away from the chest compressions which are more vital to keep blood circulating to the heart and brain, especially if only one person is present.

In one study published in The Lancet medical journal, those who received chest compressions only had less brain damage than those who received traditional CPR. Other studies have found survival rates following cardiac arrest went up a massive 300 percent when only chest compressions were used.

This newer technique does away with mouth-to-mouth breathing and instead focuses solely on forceful chest compressions at a rate of 100 per minute. You need to push hard and fast continuously and not stop to breathe into the patient’s mouth.

Aside from improving patient outcomes by increasing uninterrupted blood flow to the brain and heart, more people may be willing to perform CCR, especially on strangers, since it does not involve the mouth-to-mouth component, Mayo Clinic doctors said.

That said, doing even badly performed CPR is better than doing nothing in an emergency cardiac arrest situation. The people who fared worst in studies were those who did not receive any CPR or CCR … so if you’re in an emergency situation, first call for emergency help, then remember that even if you don’t perform CPR or CCR perfectly, doing some is better than nothing and will help buy time until emergency help arrives.

The technique is not to be used for children under eight, for respiratory failure, or in cases of drowning. In these cases, traditional CPR methods are more effective.

You can learn more about CCR and watch a video demonstrating the technique at:
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You can read The Lancet story here:
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673607604516/abstract