EPH Notes...

CPR

Get CPR Training:

Training courses are usually offered in half-day to 1-day sessions. To sign up for CPR classes, contact your local American Heart Association or Red Cross chapter.

You Will Learn To:

  • Recognize signs and symptoms of a breathing emergency
  • Care for a person who stops breathing
  • Care for a person who is choking
  • Give CPR to a person whose heart has stopped beating
  • Use your community's emergency medical services system more effectively

When To Initiate CPR

  • The person is unresponsive and has little or no breathing motion
  • There is no pulse in the wrist or neck, or no apparent heartbeat from the chest.

In An Emergency:

  • Always call an emergency number such as 911 if you see someone lose consciousness or stop breathing
  • Only attempt to administer CPR if you are trained in the procedures

For More Information:
CPR

It's a situation none of us wants to see happen. But if someone you know or someone near you suddenly collapses, stops breathing, and has no heartbeat, do you know what to do? Can you help restore his or her breathing and heartbeat until medical professionals arrive?

Knowing how to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) -- life-saving measures including mouth-to-mouth breathing and chest compressions -- may increase a person's chances for survival and avoid damage caused by lack of oxygen to the brain. A person may need CPR during or following such conditions as heart attack, stroke, drug overdose, massive blood loss, or carbon monoxide poisoning; or to restore breathing and heartbeat following choking, drowning, suffocation, or electrocution.

A study in the April 7, 1999, issue of JAMA reports that a person suffering from ventricular fibrillation (absent heartbeat caused by erratic electrical activity in the lower heart chambers) is more likely to recover and survive when CPR is immediately administered, before emergency medical professionals administer defibrillation (shock treatment to restore heartbeat) and medications. Despite evidence that CPR can save lives, these simple procedures are not performed for a majority of people who need it. But experts have reported that the actual risk of contracting a disease from mouth-to-mouth contact during CPR is small.

Take a CPR course and learn what to do in case of an emergency. (source: Journal of the American Medical Association)

| BACK |


KeEP Healthy - Williams College Health Center, ext. 2206