A Better Way to Do CPR?

Making News:

Leslie Geddes, a biomedical engineer at Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Indiana, has developed a new way to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). This CPR alternative, called “only rhythmic abdominal compression,” or OAC–CPR, works by pushing on the abdomen instead of the chest. Geddes’s hope is that this new method will be more effective than standard CPR because, according to research published in the September 2007 issue of The American Journal of Emergency Medicine (2007; 25 [7], 786–90), it increases blood flow through the heart by 25% compared with the current method.

In standard chest-compression CPR, the rescuer pushes on the chest and blows into the subject’s mouth twice for every 30 chest compressions. However, the risk of infection is a concern that keeps many would-be rescuers from performing this method. OAC–CPR eliminates the need to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

The new method still requires only one rescuer. However, instead of two breaths for every 30 chest compressions, OAC–CPR provides a breath for every abdominal compression, because pushing on the abdomen depresses the diaphragm toward the head, expelling air from the lungs. Whether the procedure gains widespread acceptance depends on whether other researchers can duplicate the results.