Background To investigate variations in emergency medical service (EMS) pre-arrival cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), including both bystander CPR without dispatch assistance and dispatch-assisted CPR (DACPR). Methods We carried out an observational study by implementing EMS pre-arrival CPR reports in three fire agencies. We included adult, non-traumatic, and non-EMS witnessed out-of-hospi...

The "2010 American Heart Association Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care" increased the focus on methods to ensure that high-quality cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is performed in all resuscitation attempts. There are 5 critical components of high-quality CPR: minimize interruptions in chest compressions, provide compressions of adequate rate and ...

BACKGROUND Mechanical chest compressions have been proposed to provide high-quality cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), but despite the growing use of mechanical chest compression devices, only few studies have addressed their impact on CPR quality. This study aims to evaluate mechanical chest compressions provided by LUCAS-2 (Lund University Cardiac Assist System) compared with manual chest c...

OBJECTIVE To compare integrated automated load distributing band CPR (iA-CPR) with high-quality manual CPR (M-CPR) to determine equivalence, superiority, or inferiority in survival to hospital discharge. METHODS Between March 5, 2009 and January 11, 2011 a randomized, unblinded, controlled group sequential trial of adult out-of-hospital cardiac arrests of presumed cardiac origin was conducted...

BACKGROUND Although modern cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) substantially decreases the mortality induced by cardiac arrest, cardiac arrest still accounts for over 50% of deaths caused by cardiovascular diseases. In this article, we address the current use of mechanical devices during CPR, and also compare the CPR quality between manual and mechanical chest compression. METHODS We compared...

High-quality cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) has been shown to improve survival outcomes after cardiac arrest. The current standard in studies evaluating CPR quality is to measure CPR process measures-for example, chest compression rate, depth, and fraction. Published studies evaluating CPR feedback devices have yielded mixed results. Newer approaches that seek to optimize CPR by measuring ...

OBJECTIVES In the early minutes of cardiac arrest, timing of defibrillation and cardiopulmonary resuscitation during the basic life support phase (BLS CPR) is debated. Aims of this study were to provide in-hospital incidence and outcome data, and to investigate the relation between outcome and time from collapse to defibrillation, time to BLS CPR, and CPR quality. METHODS Resuscitation attemp...

BACKGROUND Outcome of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can be poor, in terms of life expectancy and quality of life. OBJECTIVES To determine the impact of patient characteristics before, during, and after CPR on these outcomes, and to compare results of the quality-of-life assessment with published studies. METHODS In a cohort study, we assessed by formal instruments the quality of life,...

INTRODUCTION International Guidelines recommend measurement of end-tidal carbon dioxide (EtCO2) to enhance cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) quality and optimize blood flow during CPR. Numerous factors impact EtCO2 (e.g., ventilation, metabolism, cardiac output), yet few clinical studies have correlated CPR quality and EtCO2 during actual out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) resuscitations. ...

INTRODUCTION Background and Importance Communities in North America report wide disparities in outcomes from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. 1’2Although many report poor outcomes, several have achieved significantly higher survival rates 1’2that are likely a result of multiple factors, with one possible component being out-of-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) quality. There is precli...