STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the publication of the 2010 European Resuscitation Council (ERC) Guidelines in the journal Resuscitation. These guidelines are based on an extensive international review of all the science supporting cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), the 2010 International Consensus on CPR Science, which is also published in the current issue of Resuscitation. This year is the 50th anniversary of CPR.
The new ERC Guidelines emphasise that if a bystander sees someone collapse suddenly, and if they are unresponsive and not breathing normally, the bystander should start chest compressions by pushing down at least 5 cm in the middle of the chest at a rate of least 100 compressions per minute. The Guidelines indicate that if an ambulance dispatcher gives telephone advice to a bystander on how to do CPR, they should be told to do compression-only CPR. Recent evidence confirms that this approach will save more lives than if the dispatcher includes advice on rescue breathing.
The ERC Guidelines in the latest issue of Resuscitation include detailed advice for healthcare professionals on how to treat cardiac arrest and how to continue to treat the patient after the heart has been restarted. In many cases, this will include cooling the patient (therapeutic hypothermia) for 24 hours - this has been shown to increase the chance of survival.
The last ERC Guidelines were published in 2005. In the 2010 Guidelines, changes have been made only if supported by scientific evidence or if the change simplifies the resuscitation process. The 2010 ERC guidelines and the International Consensus on CPR Science can be downloaded from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03009572 or http://www.erc.edu.
Resuscitation is a monthly international and interdisciplinary medical journal. It claims to be the only journal in the area of cardiopulmonary resuscitation that is general in nature and not specific to a single body system. The papers published deal with the etiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of acute diseases. Clinical and experimental research, reviews and case histories and description of methods used in clinical resuscitation or experimental resuscitation research are encouraged.
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