Category Archives: Roy on Rescue

Posted in Roy on Rescue • Training Questions • CPR for Instructors • CPR for Providers • Respiratory

RoyOnRescue Answers Question About Assessing Breathing

Comments:3 Comments

In this post, I answer a question from a professional who has been training lay rescuers and wants to update their students to the new 2010 suggested guidelines.

The following excerpt is taken from the original email.
Greetings from India,


“We teach first aid and CPR (to the layperson/non medical person)in New Delhi, India and are reading the new guidelines so that they can be incorporated in the new year.  I know the handbooks will be out in the first quarter but would like to start adding the 2010 guidelines sooner.
A couple of questions- your input would be appreciated.
1. Do we carry on with AVPU
2. As checking for breathing is being de-emphasized – how are first aiders to tell if breathing is present or not. From what i can figure out- look, listen feel is not to be used now.”


Merry Christmas and Happy New year.

Kind Regards,

New Delhi

The following is my response:

Hello Student,

Thank you for reaching out as I hope to be of assistance.  Regarding the new updates for 2010 and how it relates to training the lay public.

1.  Q:  “Do we carry on with AVPU?”
A:  Yes and No.  Yes in so much as we are always kind of asking ourselves, “Is this person awake? Are they Verbal? Do they respond to pain(not that we should be causing any pain)? Are they unresponsive?  But I have to say no, because we are checking to see if the person appears to be breathing or breathing normally?  This does not fit in the AVPU scale for a level of consciousness.  We must also remember that AVPU is an advanced medical training and the ECC/ILCOR recommendations do not teach lay rescuers to use AVPU anywhere in the curriculum.

2.  Q: With assessment for breathing being de-emphasized and the elimination of the “Look, Listen, and Feel” part of assessment, what is the best way to train lay rescuers to assess for breathing?
A:  This is a great question.  Under the new guidelines, assessment for breathing is performed by looking for the following:  Is the persons chest moving like in breathing?  Does the person appear to be breathing normally?   If the person is not breathing normally, and the chest is not rising and falling, the rescuer will initial emergency medical services and begin CPR starting with 30 chest compressions at least 2 inches deep and at a rate of at least 100 per minute.

The simplification of assessment for breathing was brought by confusion of agonal respirations vs. regular gas exchanging breathing.  The hope is that if a rescuer notices that the person is not breathing normally, help will be called and initiation of CPR will not be delayed.

For those of us who worry that too many victims will receive CPR when it is not necessary and thereby suffer unnecessary injuries, one must be aware of the scientific studies that show that “only two percent of people receiving CPR suffered any injury at all from CPR when it was not needed.  But the advantages of early initiation of CPR without delay, has been shown to improve survival with minimal risk of injury but with great increase of benefit.( http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/short/121/1/91)

Please note that all update training is available for free at:  http://www.profirstaid.com

Thank you for your email and please let me know if you need any further assistance.

Best Wishes and Merry Christmas!

Roy Shaw, EMT-Paramedic
roy.shaw@procpr.org
royonrescue@gmail.com

Posted in Roy on Rescue • CPR for Instructors • CPR for Providers • Dehydration

Foods That Help Hydrate While In The Orient

Comments:

A student wrote:

“My Husband and I will spend a month in Southeast Asia in January.  I am concerned that I will have issues with the hot, huumid climate.  We will only have air conditioning in the hotel and bus.  I have lightweight clothes, colling bandana, big hat, and know to drink lots of water.  Is there anything else I can do, such as eat certain foods, ie, salty snacks, boullion, etc.?”

Well this is a great question!  After a little research I’ve got great news.

It turns out that not only can you add one type of food to your diet, there are three types of food that will help you stay hydrated or rehydrate especially if you or someone you know is NOT a big drinker of water.  The following VideoBlog should help answer this question and at the bottom of this post, I’ve included the source where I found some helpful information on different foods that help you stay or get better hydrated.

I hope this helps and thanks for sending the question.

Have fun in Southern Asia and let me know how it went when you get back.

Zai Jian(Goodbye)

Roy

royonrescue@gmail.com
Tweet: @royonrescue

Foods That Hydrate

Posted in Roy on Rescue • Training Questions • Child Emergencies • CPR for Instructors • CPR for Providers

How Can A Child Do CPR?

Comments:1 Comment

In this episode of RoyOnRescue, Roy get’s asked the best way to have a child do CPR on a person who is larger then them.  Other than a bit of bad videography while Roy’s on the fly…I think it will help answer a question many people have about the best way that a small person can help someone in cardiac arrest.
Best Wishes,
The RoyOnRescue Team

Posted in Roy on Rescue • CPR for Instructors • CPR for Providers • Special CPR Conditions

Life and Death With Dignity…and Privacy

Comments:

just received a question from a student who asked:

Dear RoyOnRescue,

“In thinking about the use of an AED, what if the person is a woman and we have to “bare the chest”.   Should we place the AED pads under the shirt, or do we have to actually bare the chest for proper use of an AED?”

-CH

This is a good question and one that is uncomfortable for some to think about.  Whenever a rescuer is working on a patient, male or female,  a rule of ethics applies.  We as rescuers should be thinking about the dignity and respect of the patients privacy and confidentiality at all times.  This includes times where we may have to “Bare” the chest of the victim in order for us to defibrillate or treat them.  We should seek to be discrete as long as we are able to get the job of rescue accomplished without delay.   If the person is able to be defibrillated without full removal of the clothing that’s great.  If the person needs to have shirt or underclothing cut or removed in order to defibrillate properly than that will need to be done.  If there are bystanders, those bystanders could turn their backs to the patient and try to make a human curtain around the patient in order to protect the patients privacy and dignity.  Think about if this is in a public workplace or location where the person is known.  They may survive if everything goes the way it should and if they do, they will probably return to this workplace.  We must make sure that as far as we can control, we protected their dignity and helped them as much as possible without complicating or slowing down the rescue process.

I hope this helps.

Best Wishes,

Roy

www.royonrescue.com
royonresccue@gmail.com

Posted in Roy on Rescue • CPR for Instructors • CPR for Providers

2010 AHA Updates From Chicago

Comments:1 Comment

Hi Everyone,

I’m here at the 2010 American Heart Association instructor conference hosted at the McCormick Place. It was a wonderful weekend in the “Windy City” and worked out well for Jody Marvi(ProTrainings.com Compliance and Accreditation Manager) and I to attend the new guideline roll-out for BLS, ACLS, PALS and NeoNatal Resuscitation. I’m glad to announce that in the end, I don’t see any serious issues to any of the latest guidelines for resuscitation. I was afraid there was going to be some changes that were going to cause ethical issues for end of life issues but thankfully to the best of my knowledge, this didn’t materialize for 2010. So take a peek and let me know what you think of the latest ECC/ILCOR recommendations for resuscitation.

Posted in Roy on Rescue • CPR for Instructors • CPR for Providers • Patient Assessment

AVPU for Deciding to Start CPR?

Comments:

In this episode of RoyOnRescue, Roy offers an answer to an email question about using the assessment of Awake, Verbal, Painful Response, Unconscious(AVPU) method for deciding to begin CPR.   He sheds some light on what AVPU is and how it can be blended with the guidelines to decide to start CPR.

Posted in Roy on Rescue • RoyOnRescue Updates • CPR for Instructors • CPR for Providers

Roy On Location at the 2010 Video Training Updates

Comments:

I wanted to update everyone on the progress of the ProTrainings update video shoot.

I had come in early one morning and thought I’d have a cup of good coffee and let you see the on-site video location where the production team and I were shooting the new updated video trainings for the ProTraining websites. It’s important for ProTrainings to be a leader in the area of this type of training and though the video trainings are not required to be updated for a long time, we thought we’d get them out to you as soon as possible. If there’s enough benefit to change the guidelines then there’s enough benefit to get them to the ProCPR.org and ProFirstAid.com students as fast as possible.
On a side note, the production team and I have been having a lot of fun while working really hard on the set. I hope you’ll like some changes we’ve made for the new guidelines and I know that the team and I are very excited to get these updates edited and uploaded to our website in the next month or so.

Feel free to email me any questions you may have about what goes into our video production of these trainings or what it’s like behind the scenes at ProCPR.org and ProFirstAid.com.

Until next time,

Be A Rescue Hero For Someone’s Loved One,

Best wishes,

Roy

Posted in Roy on Rescue • RoyOnRescue Updates • Training Questions • CPR for Instructors • CPR for Providers

2010 CPR Guidelines Update – Activation of EMS or Calling a Code

Comments:

In this episode of RoyOnRescue, Roy Shaw visits the new 2010 CPR guideline update regarding activation of Emergency Medical Services and calling a code. Be sure to watch this episode to get the latest guideline release covering this subject.

Posted in Roy on Rescue • RoyOnRescue Updates • Training Questions • CPR for Instructors • CPR for Providers

2010 CPR Updates -Compression Only CPR

Comments:5 Comments

Hello Everyone,

I’ve been debating on trying to post this before the weekend and now I’m sure I should. It’s not going to be short but I will try and get too the point.
There is a lot of talk going on about Compression Only CPR and how it rivals traditional CPR. I’m going to shed some light on the technique and try to sneak in a bit of synthesized science to help understand what it is and what it’s not. Hold on to your seat…hear we go!

Posted in Roy on Rescue • RoyOnRescue Updates • Training Questions • CPR for Instructors • CPR for Providers

2010 CPR Update Series – 911 and Dispatcher Changes

Comments:

This 2010 CPR update training, I take a look at the 911 and Dispatch Changes.  The biggest takeaway from this change is a simplification for the rescuer who is calling 911.  The dispatcher is going to ask a series of questions to determine if the victim is breathing or “Not”.  Not, can mean not breathing at all, or could mean not breathing normally(Agonal or gasping).  Upon this finding as well as deciding if this victim is in cardiac arrest due to asphyxia or medical condition like cardiac disease will change the directives the dispatcher will give to the rescuer.

Watch this RoyOnRescue video to help understand the difference between 2005 and 2010 and why the change was made.