Giving a person CPR for 38 minutes or longer increases his or her chances of surviving a cardiac arrest, a new study finds
Cardiac arrest occurs when electrical impulses in the heart become rapid or chaotic, causing it to suddenly stop beating. 80 percent of cardiac arrests in the United States take place outside a hospital with less than 10 percent of such patients surviving the attack, revealed an American Heart Association report. Previous studies have found that immediate CPR that returns spontaneous circulation is essential for cardiac patients to survive regaining normal brain functioning. However, not many studies have defined the duration of these CPR sessions.
In a new study researchers found that CPR for 38 minutes or longer not only increases the chances of a patient surviving such arrests, it also increases the chances of the patient to sustain normal brain functioning, revealed a press release.
For the study, researchers first studied a large collection of data that revealed the time at which a patient collapsed from a cardiac arrest to the time spontaneous circulation returned. They also looked at how the patient's brain functioned a month later from the incident.
Survivors were considered to have fared well neurologically if they were alert and able to return to normal activities or if they had moderate disability but were well enough to work part-time in a sheltered environment or take part in daily activities independently.
Researchers noted that the time between collapse and return to spontaneous circulation was 13 minutes for the survivors who fared well compared to 21 minutes for those who suffered severe brain disabilities. They also found that after taking other factors into consideration, the changes of surviving a cardiac arrest without incurring any severe brain damages decreased by 5 percent for every 60 seconds that passed between collapsing and returning of spontaneous circulation.
Taking all their findings into consideration, researchers concluded that 38 minutes or longer CPR sessions are ideal to increase the chances of survival for such patients.
"It may be appropriate to continue CPR if the return of spontaneous circulation occurs for any period of time," concluded Ken Nagao, M.D., Ph.D., professor and director-in-chief of the Department of Cardiology, CPR and Emergency Cardiovascular Care at Surugadai Nihon University Hospital in Tokyo.
