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Study Suggests Women Less Likely to Get CPR From Bystanders
Women are less likely than men to get CPR from a bystander and more likely to die, a new study suggests, and researchers think reluctance to touch a woman's chest might be one reason.
Only 39 percent of women suffering cardiac arrest in a public place were given CPR versus 45 percent of men, and men were 23 percent more likely to survive, the study found. It involved nearly 20,000 cases around the country and is the first to examine gender differences in receiving heart help from the public versus professional responders.
"It can be kind of daunting thinking about pushing hard and fast on the center of a woman's chest" and some people may fear they are hurting her, said Audrey Blewer, a University of Pennsylvania researcher who led the study. Rescuers also may worry about moving a woman's clothing to get better access, or touching breasts to do CPR, but doing it properly "shouldn't entail that," said another study leader, U Penn's Dr. Benjamin Abella. "You put your hands on the sternum, which is the middle of the chest. In theory, you're touching in between the breasts."
The study was discussed Sunday at an American Heart Association conference in Anaheim.
Get touchy and save women's lives.
Also at Penn Medicine and the American Heart Association. Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Other study mentioned in the AP article: Sexual Activity as a Trigger for Sudden Cardiac Arrest (DOI: 10.1016/j.jacc.2017.09.025) (DX)
Related study: Sex-Based Disparities in Incidence, Treatment, and Outcomes of Cardiac Arrest in the United States, 2003-2012. (DOI: 10.1161/JAHA.116.003704) (DX)
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday November 14 2017, @11:44PM (3 children)
I can't perform CPR, therefore I would be mimicking the same TV shows which tell me defibrillators start hearts and gunshots knock people off their feet (which I don't watch, and so have an even less accurate view of their probably-already-inaccurate depiction).
I can't remember ever seeing a CPR scene in my life, though presumably I did since I think it's something about compressing the heart manually and I must have gotten that idea somewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD2qTmDsiHk [youtube.com]
I haven't got a clue what proportion of CPR patients who have ribs broken and try to sue is.
Zero.
I don't know how likely I am to break a persons ribs for a given force* (having never been trained for CPR, or broken a rib with my hands).
Very unlikely, unless it's a child and you are drunk. You're far more likely to be tickling them. If they aren't screaming in agony and you're breaking their ribs then it's almost certain they need CPR to live. What good is a pair of non-broken ribs if you are dead. If someone needs CPR, THEY ARE DEAD. The worst you can do is kill yourself as well.
I don't know how likely slamming both clasped hands into someone's chest from above and behind my head is to do more harm than good
Yes it is. Well it won't do anything. perform CPR, not kung fu or whatever that is
I don't know whether to continue CPR if they start screaming in agony.
Then they are conscious and they don't need CPR
I don't know whether to continue CPR if I break a rib.
If they aren't breathing, and nobody else is better qualified, yes.
I don't know fucking anything, and would probably do WAY more harm than a jury would overlook.
No you wouldn't. You're far more likely to do nothing and let someone die. Best bet is to take a 2 hour first aid course though, you never know when you'll need it.
Unless your idea of CPR is using a sledgehammer to smash their brains in, you are protected in pretty much any country you can think of.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 15 2017, @01:43AM (2 children)
Thanks for the information.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD2qTmDsiH
My prior image of CPR was exerting the absolute most force I was capable of on their sternum with my hands (lift clasped fists up above head, slam down as hard as I can over as long an arc as I can to maximize the time they accelerate) at a normal heartbeat pace between impacts, this is now clearly incredibly wrong and probably would do massive damage if I'd ever done it to somebody (which I almost never would have for the above-stated reasons). I HUGELY overestimated the rigidity of the ribcage if just pushing hard suffices. Though my intentional overestimation of risk prevented that from being a harmful mistake.
That's a good video, and while I'll rethink performing CPR this experience has only reinforced my position of caution in other matters given that if I had attempted CPR prior to this without gaining further knowledge then I would probably have done a hell of a lot of damage to the person via something which isn't very close to CPR and more resembles me attempting to cave their chest in with every ounce of strength I have in my arms (on the, now falsified, assumption that extensive bending of bones was required (or perhaps the false assumption is that ribs are hard to bend in this direction)).
>re legal risk
Would the the aforementioned (now known to just be a) violent beating not attract legal issues because I performed it in good faith? Would a jury even accept that it was in good faith? Are you willing to bet your life on it? Neither was I. As such I would have made the correct decision by deciding not to, in good faith, violently beat their chest in as hard as I could (obviously hugely scaling back the force if it did snap enough ribs to crush inwards). This only makes me more wary of legal risk in other similar situations, since it has made more intuitive the extent of my ignorance of the limits of the body.
While my estimation of the legal risk of CPR is now FAR lower than before, that's largely just because there's far less force involved and less potential for harm if it's just forceful pushing (though perhaps I overestimate the difference in force imparted by a hard push vs a fast moving fist).
>Very unlikely, unless it's a child and you are drunk.
This is only true if one knows roughly how to perform CPR. Given my previous guess at what it was then it probably would have broken ribs if mere pushing suffices to deform them as much as I guess-without-any-good-reason is required.
>perform CPR, not kung fu or whatever that is
The entire point of the post is that guessing what CPR is and doing that is dangerous and irresponsible and that in ignorance the preferred course is often no action (which turned out to be correct since my guess at what CPR was was very, very inaccurate and probably rather harmful).
>No you wouldn't [do more harm]
Given my prior image of CPR, and the fact that apparently the ribcage can be sufficiently compressed (to an extent I have no good reason for believing it is) by just pushing on it rather than hitting it, I rather expect I would have previously done a hell of a lot of harm if I for some reason decided to ignore my caution about guessing how to perform medical procedures and then performing them on nonconsenting strangers.
>You're far more likely to do nothing and let someone die
Sorry, it was intended to be read as:
>I don't know fucking anything, and would probably do WAY more harm than a jury would overlook [if I did ignore my caution and perform my best guess as to what CPR was at the time of writing].
tl;dr: Thanks for the information, there's now a decent chance I'll perform CPR since it looks like it isn't too dangerous compared to my previous image of it. I do not however concede that it's better to guess how to do it if one's as ignorant as I was (unless the chance of death when it's required is really high, which it may be, but a person ignorant of what CPR looks like would also be ignorant of that stat), the only reason my would-be behavior changed is because you provided sufficient information that I wouldn't be guessing anywhere near so much, and the guesses I would make would be regarding a far smaller amount of force than before.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday November 15 2017, @06:11AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 15 2017, @07:30AM
>AC
DW, getting corrected on the stupid shit I say without a public black mark is the whole reason I'm AC. I'm very glad my teenage self largely did that, and I assume by the time I'm thirty I'll be similarly relieved my 2- self did the same.
>why the heck did you think that deformation of the ribcage was difficult if the simple act of taking a breath can do it
I'd never considered it before today, but I suppose I assumed it moved incidentally to breathing but didn't deform.
>How can you be so ignorant of your own body?
I literally can't remember the last time I exerted or injured myself beyond a short bike ride or a small cut. I've never broken a bone or even seen (IRL) someone do so, and can't imagine I will any time soon. I discount media representations of injury, on the grounds that Hollywood seems to think head injuries are just cheap sleeping pills, and so can't judge by what I see online and in the media. Literature isn't a suitable source either, for the same reasons. I would guess I properly exerted myself when I last moved house, but with the aid of another I was unable to judge my flesh's work from their's. I do not know what I can lift and what I can't, because I never need to lift anything heavier than a single wooden chair alone. I do not know the relative force of a punch vs a push because I never punch anything, nor push beyond a somewhat stubborn door.
I was shocked at the extent of my ignorance here too for what it's worth.
tl;dr: In the year 5555
Your arms hangin' limp at your sides
Your legs got nothin' to do
Some machine's doin' that for you