The new ILCOR Guidelines 2015 highlight the critical and effective coordinated community response that brings together the bystander (first aider) and the medical dispatcher.
Adult Basic Life Support and Automated External Defibrillation
There is a great emphasis to “telephone CPR”, given by the dispatcher to the bystander.
Trained provider should assess the collapsed victim rapidly to determine if the victim is unresponsive and not breathing normally, so as to alert the EMS.
The victim who is unresponsive and not breathing normally is in cardiac arrest and requires CPR. Bystanders and emergency medical dispatchers should be suspicious of cardiac arrest in any patient presenting with seizures and should carefully assess whether the victim is breathing normally.
CPR providers should perform chest compressions for all victims in cardiac arrest. CPR providers trained and able to perform rescue breaths should combine chest compressions and rescue breaths.
The CPR guidelines remain unchanged. Chest compressions and ventilations remain essential.
Defibrillation within 3-5 min of collapse can produce survival rates as high as 50-70 %. Early defibrillation can be achieved through CPR and AED providers using public access and on-site AEDs. Public access AEDs should be available to high density places of citizens.
Pediatric Basic Life Support
The duration of delivering a breath is about 1 s, to coincide with adult practice.
For chest compressions, the lower sternum should be depressed by at least one third the anterior-posterior diameter of the chest (4 cm for the infant and 5 cm for the child).
