Approximately every five years, the CPR training industry undergoes revisions and updates to
its protocols. It's important to know what the differences are in the current recommendation
year as compared to the one that's currently outdated. We're gonna be talking about those
updates, so that you can become more aware of the current recommendations and compare
them to the way you were trained in the past. We have several topics but we're gonna start
with basic CPR. The CPR recommendations really haven't changed a whole lot. But the re-emphasis
is on the rate of compression and the depth of compression. You see the rate of compression
before was at least 100 times per minute. But the current recommendation is that it's
at least 100 and no more than 120 compressions per minute. The other emphasis is on the depth
of compression. Before it said at least 2 inches deep and now we have a ceiling. It's
at least 2 inches deep and no more than 2.4 inches deep. We've also re-emphasized the
fact that though hands only CPR is better than no CPR at all, for infants and children
who are heavily driven by oxygenation, if you know how to do CPR or are willing to do
full CPR, rescue breathing and chest compressions have been shown to be more beneficial than
just hands only CPR, when it comes to infant and child patients. Along with CPR, we should
talk about how to access EMS when an emergency situation is recognized. There's been a re-emphasis
because of all of the different types of technology, that we are encouraging people now to not
necessarily spend as much time looking for landlines when they have a cell phone right
in their pocket. Accessing the phone is a great way to speed up the time from recognizing
emergency to activation of emergency medical services. It's also important for us to realize
that most phones have a speaker phone. So if you can touch the speaker phone button,
have the dispatcher actually be able to talk you through the prompts or be there to encourage
you through this very intense moment, it's always going to help you to have a better
experience as you work through this process. The next subject is a topic that I'm very
passionate about, and that's the training regarding CPR. The update currently is re-emphasizing
the need for ongoing education and especially that which is sooner than every two years.
The current recommendation is that you get re-certified every two years. But what we
see is that people are losing their skills sooner than that. So it's important that they
have some way of refreshing their skills more often, and maybe even getting re-certified
more closely to an annual versus a bi-annual. I'm sure we'll see some recommendations evolving
over time with this. But keep it in the back of your mind, that if there's a way to refresh
your skills more often, take advantage of it. It's also important that we know how deep
we're compressing the chest of the mannequin when we're practicing for real life CPR. So
there's been a push that mannequins ideally will have an intrinsic device that actually
will tell you, with some feedback device, when you've reached that 2 to 2.4 inches depth
compression. Now related to the metronome, or the pace of the compressions, that can
be done either intrinsically in the mannequin or from an external device. The depth of the
compression can also be an external device that's laid over the top of the mannequin
while you're doing your compressions. Now let's talk about the topic of how people learn
and some very interesting science that's come back, when it comes to comparing those who
learned via the computer with video based education and those that were instructor led
in the classroom. See the science shows that people are learning just as equally well in
a computer based or video based learning environment as they did in a classroom with an instructor
who led them through the steps. But what we believe as well is that because they can pace
themselves and they can do it at a time and in a location that's most convenient for them,
they're usually better learners and absorb the information better. Now probably the biggest
change to this update was the introduction of the opioid overdose treatment. This is
now implementing nalaxone, when is better known as Narcan, by its trade name. You see
Narcan, or nalaxone, has now become an over the counter medication in many states. It
can be delivered or administered through the nasal passages or through the intra-muscular.
Now what's great about this is that for those people who are in respiratory or cardiac arrest,
as a result of an opioid overdose, this treatment could reverse the effects and help save their
life. So that pretty much highlights most of the changes as it relates to CPR. And though
I said before, it's not really changes, it's just reiterations, for the most part, in the
exception of the opioid overdose. Now let's talk about the First Aid changes that may
be affecting you, as you go through this next training. So there's really about five or
six topics that I think are even worth discussing in the update list. And those are the topics
of bleeding that is out of control or needs help being controlled, the spinal immobilization
concept, the tooth avulsion, the hypoglycemia treatment, stroke assessment, and when concussion
patients can actually return to play or work. Now in bleeding control, there's three different
pieces of that. One is when to use a hemostatic agent, when to use a tourniquet, and then
we're not going to actually use the fully occlusive chest dressing when we have a chest
wound. These are things that are not really all that new for the most part, in the exception
of the chest wound occlusive dressing. But it's being reiterated that if a bleeding issue
is not controlled easily or the person's life may be at risk, that we're re-encouraging
the use of these hemostatic agents and tourniquet use. When it comes to spinal immobilization,
the idea is that we're not really using C collars anymore. We're not trying to fully
immobilize. We're trying to minimize the movement of the patient, as we know that it's impossible
to fully immobilize anybody. So that's just something to keep in mind. When it comes to
tooth avulsion, there's been some other treatment recommendations in what to put teeth into,
and one of the most favorite was milk, whole milk, and egg whites. And neither of those
are easily stored in a First Aid bag. So we have some recommendations that we'll be coming
to, that are a little bit more stable and more portable and will last longer in a First
Aid bag. When it comes to hypoglycemia, we're gonna be talking about how, usually after
the first dose treatment of giving someone sugar, we now for a diabetic could wait up
to 15 minutes before we activate emergency medical services and get them on the way,
as we may see a delayed response in giving the person sugar. Remember, it's only when
they can safely swallow it themselves, that we do so. But we'll cover that in training.
When it comes to the area of concussions, there's been an assessment put in place that
when a person has the signs and symptoms of concussion, that they do not return to play
or work until they're fully cleared by the healthcare provider. And lastly, on stroke
assessment, we'll be showing you the latest recommendations on how we use an easy to learn
acronym that helps point us to whether or not a person might be suffering the symptoms
of stroke and how to activate emergency services. These updates might not seem all that different.
But it's always good to keep them refreshed. And we thought summarizing them might help
you look for them when it comes to this update training for you.