November 4, 1996
UW News Release from Health Sciences News
Do people need hours of training to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation? Or can they learn enough CPR from brief TV messages to save the life of someone in cardiac arrest? Doctors at the University of Washington hope to find out.
If you suffer sudden cardiac arrest, one of the places you’re most likely to survive is in a public setting in Seattle/King County, where many people are trained in CPR, and where the region’s Medic I system offers rapid emergency response.
However, even in Seattle the survival rate is not as high as it could be, especially if cardiac arrest happens in the home, where family members may not know CPR. The procedure is essential to provide oxygen until emergency medical personnel arrive with a defibrillator to shock the wildly beating or arrested heart into a normal rhythm.
People who receive immediate CPR from bystanders who witness the collapse are almost twice as likely to survive as those who don’t receive treatment until emergency assistance arrives.
Researchers at the University of Washington will track survival rates from sudden cardiac arrest in the months before and after a series of short public service announcements that show the basics of CPR. The spots are airing on KING TV, the local NBC affiliate. If survival rates rise, they will advocate expanded use of such messages.
“Even though Seattle is the most CPR-sophisticated city in the world, bystander CPR is performed less than half the time in cases of sudden cardiac arrest,” said Dr. Mickey Eisenberg, director of the Emergency Medicine Service at University of Washington Medical Center. “And this is after many years of effort to train people.”
The UW researchers want to find out whether people can absorb enough knowledge from two 30-second TV spots (narrated by local TV anchor, Jean Enersen) to enable them to perform CPR, said Eisenberg. The announcements are airing about 200 times over the course of four to five months, said Karla Halbakken, community relations director at KING.
“If we at KING 5 can help encourage viewers, especially senior citizens, to learn and do CPR, we believe we’ve used our medium in an excellent way,” said Halbakken. “We’re very pleased with the number of calls we’ve received and the number of people learning CPR as a result of seeing the TV spots.”
“We’re looking at innovative ways to reach the target audience and increase the survival rate,” Eisenberg said. “We’ve not been successful to date.” Those who most need to know CPR are the wives of older men who are most likely to suffer sudden cardiac arrest — most frequently, at home.
Three-quarters of the time, said Eisenberg, cardiac arrest occurs in the victim’s home, where only one patient in four receives bystander CPR. If cardiac arrest occurs in a public location in Seattle, one patient in two receives bystander CPR.
Ideally, everyone would take the three to nine hours of CPR training offered by various community agencies, said Eisenberg, but the hope is that TV viewers can absorb the fundamentals through repeated airings of basic instructions. Each television spot also provides a toll-free number for viewers wishing to sign up for further instruction (1-888-CPR-KING).
“Any CPR is better than none,” said Eisenberg. “If you hesitate to perform CPR because you’re afraid you won’t do it properly, it can mean the difference between life and death.”
KING has already received feedback from a sports fisherman who, solely on the basis of knowledge gained by watching the TV announcements, performed CPR on an older man who collapsed on a dock in Tenino, Wash.
Eisenberg’s fellow researchers are Dr. Leonard Cobb, UW professor of cardiology at Harborview Medical Center and an initiator of community-based CPR, and Carol Fahrenbruch, a cardiology research scientist. Funding for the study and for production of the announcements comes from the Medic I Foundation. KING is providing air time as a public service.
Steps in Adult CPR
1. Determine unconsciousness. Call 911 (or your local emergency medical system) before initiating CPR.
2. Open the airway by tilting the head back and lifting the chin.
3. Check breathing: look for chest rise, listen for air exchange and feel for air movement.
4. If there is no breathing, seal your mouth to the patient’s and give 2 slow breaths. Watch for chest rise.
5. Check neck pulse. If a pulse exists, perform rescue breathing once every five seconds.
6. If no pulse, give 15 chest compressions (at rate of 80-100 per minute). Place heel of one hand between nipples with the other hand on top. Compress 1 1/2 to 2 inches.
7. Continue alternating 15 chest compressions with 2 slow breaths until help arrives.
For children, alternate 1 breath to 5 compressions at the rate of 100 per minute.
