Cardiovascular Diseases Commons^™

Arc Sac Advisory Pulse Check For Cardiac Arrest, Sarah Clarke, Richard N. Bradley, Siobán Kennedy

Richard N Bradley

One good quality study (LOE 4) supports omitting a pulse check after defibrillation for patients in cardiac arrest.

One fair quality study (LOE 4) opposes the performance of simultaneous as opposed to sequential pulse and breathing check to determine cardiac arrest.

There is insufficient evidence to support a recommendation on the preferred method for the initial determination of cardiac arrest.

CPR courses should specifically teach the recognition of agonal breathing and the understanding that agonal breathing is not normal breathing and that it indicates the need for CPR.

Untrained Volunteers Are Marginally Effective In Delivering Public Access Defibrillation, Richard N. Bradley, Lynda J. Schoenstein, Mohhamad Alshanti

Richard N Bradley

Study objectives: This study analyzed the behavior of untrained volunteers when presented with a simulated cardiac arrest and an automated external defibrillator (AED). The primary hypothesis of this study was that volunteers could, with no advance training, operate an AED to deliver a defibrillation to a mannequin in 3 minutes or less at least 75% of the time. The secondary hypothesis was that this population would perform all of the tasks considered essential in AED use (establish unresponsiveness, check for breathing, give 2 rescue breaths, check for pulse, apply electrodes correctly, clear patient, activate emergency medical services (EMS) response, and …