American Heart Association

Everyone. Regardless of particular job requirements, anyone with a family should learn CPR, because 85% of cardiac arrests occur at home. If something happens to a loved one, there is nothing worse than not knowing what to do in an emergency situation. At the very least, keep a first aid kit in your home and vehicle and know how to administer basic chest compressions while waiting for emergency responders. This could mean the difference between life and death for your child, parent or spouse, or even for yourself.

Check that the area is safe, then perform the following basic CPR steps:

• Call 911 or ask someone else to.
• Lay the person on their back and open their airway.
• Check for breathing. ...
• Perform 30 chest compressions.
• Perform two rescue breaths.
• Repeat until an ambulance or automated external defibrillator (AED) arrives.

Steps to help a person having a cardiac arrest are listed below.

• If you see someone collapse, check to see whether the person responds to shouting and tapping on their body. Check for breathing and a pulse. If the person is not breathing normally and if they do not respond, call 9-1-1for help.
• Start CPR.
• Locate an AED. Follow the AED’s verbal instructions to deliver a shock to restart the heart of the affected person.
• Continue CPR until first responders arrive and take over. First responders will continue CPR and may use an AED to give more shocks to restore the affected person’s heart rhythm. They may also give medicines through an intravenous (IV) line.

The CPR can be stopped if

• the ambulance arrives and trained medical staff take over, or
• the person who you are helping shows signs of consciousness or starts breathing normally again.
• If they stay unconscious despite breathing normally, put them in the recovery position.
• If you’re too exhausted to carry on doing chest compressions, that’s an acceptable reason to stop as well.

• When a doctor—or some other appropriate emergency medical provider, like a paramedic—tells you to stop.
• When you become exhausted and cannot continue (this gets messy, as we'll see below).
• When the patient begins yelling at you to stop hitting him in the chest (this really happens). In other words, when the patient gets better.

AHA CPR, especially if administered immediately after cardiac arrest, can double or triple a person's chance of survival. According to 2021 US data for adult OHCA only, survival to hospital discharge was 9.1% for all EMS-treated non-traumatic OHCA cardiac arrests.

According to the CDC, Currently, about 9 in 10 people who have cardiac arrest outside the hospital die.2 But CPR can help improve those odds. If it is performed in the first few minutes of cardiac arrest, CPR can double or triple a person’s chance of survival.

The initial success rate of cardiopulmonary resuscitation was equal to 15.3%, while the ultimate success rate (discharged alive from the hospital) was as 10.6%. The six-month success rate after resuscitation was 8.78% than those who were discharged alive. There were no significant statistical differences between different age groups regarding the initial success rate of resuscitation (P = 0.14), and the initial resuscitation success rate was higher in patients in morning shift (P = 0.02).

CPR can break ribs and cause severe pain. Survivors likely face a long hospital stay and rehabilitation. Complications of intubation and ventilation include damage to the teeth, voice box or lungs, pneumonias or other infections, and collapsed lungs.

• The primary is that Basic Life Support (BLS) goes into additional detail regarding managing a cardiac event in a medical setting where you’re more likely to have access to medical equipment and more advanced lifesaving tools, and those with more medical training may be nearby.
• CPR courses are intended for people who will be helping “victims” outside of a clinical setting, the course you take may actually be CPR plus First Aid. In a course like this, you learn how to manage various medical emergencies in a non-medical setting while awaiting emergency responders.

• The AHA’s BLS course trains participants to promptly recognize several life-threatening emergencies, give high-quality chest compressions, deliver appropriate ventilations and provide early use of an AED. Reflects science and education from the American Heart Association Guidelines Update for CPR and Emergency Cardiovascular Care (ECC).

• High-quality CPR for adults, children, and infants
• The AHA Chain of Survival, specifically the BLS components
• Important early use of an AED
• Effective ventilations using a barrier device
• Importance of teams in multirescuer resuscitation and performance as an effective team member during multirescuer CPR
• Relief of foreign-body airway obstruction (choking) for adults and infants

2 years

2 years

• No, When you receive your BLS certification, it is good for a certain period of time. Once the time has elapsed, you will need to recertify if you wish to maintain access to patients and continue working in this field. Otherwise, you could be putting lives at risk! If your current cert expires soon or already has expired (you can check by looking up the expiration date on your card), there are some things that must take place before you’re allowed back into patient rooms.
• First things first: always confirm with facility policy as each hospital/clinic should have its own unique requirements when it comes to getting re-certified.
• Secondly, you will need to complete a course and pass an exam in order to recertify your BLS. A new certification period is not automatic: it doesn’t simply start when the old one expires. You must go through this process again by taking a training class or online program and passing an assessment test before being allowed back into patient rooms.

• The Advisor: Basic Life Support (BLS) program was developed for candidates who pass the cognitive portion of the HeartCode® BLS Provider Course but cannot independently perform the physical skills of CPR.
• By successfully advising others how to perform CPR and use an automated external defibrillator (AED), people with physical disabilities can receive an Advisor: BLS card.