ACT High School CPR & AED Student Manual

What does CPR stand for

What does CPR stand for

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

4 R’s of CPR

• Risk: factors in your life for developing heart disease or having a stroke

• Recognize: how to recognize a developing emergency

• React: what to do when you see a developing emergency

• Resuscitate: how to do CPR, how to use an AED, and how to help someone who is choking

Chain of Survival

emergency response system we need if we are going to improve survival from emergencies

• Early activation of emergency response

• Performing early CPR

• Providing early defibrillation with an AED

• Advanced resuscitation (paramedics, not you)

• Post-cardiac arrest care (paramedics, not you)

• Recovery (paramedics, not you)

What is a heart attack?

• Oxygen is carried by blood through a network of blood vessels, nourishing the organs of the body → without circulating blood, and without oxygen, these organs start to die.

• Other organs, like the heart, last longer without oxygen, but only minutes longer.

• the heart needs oxygen delivered to its tissues.

• The heart has its own blood vessels that supply its muscle → The blood vessels include a network of arteries and veins.

  • When one of these arteries becomes blocked (e.g. by plaque, which is junk like fat or cholesterol), the area of the heart muscle that the artery nourishes is suddenly deprived of circulation... no blood circulating,

  • no oxygen → the person experiences chest pain.

  • If the narrowing or blockage opens up after a little bit, the pain goes away until next time - called angina.

  • Many people take nitroglycerin when they get angina. It helps open up the circulation and relieves the pain.

  • If the artery stays blocked, the pain remains and the area of affected heart muscle starts to die. This is what is

    called a heart attack (doctors call this a myocardial infarction.)

what is cardiac arrest

• when a heart stops beating, it is no longer pumping blood to the rest of the body → the heart is in cardiac arrest

• can occur when the heart muscle is suffering because it can’t get oxygen, it gets irritable

• the hearts main muscles (ones around the ventricles) lose their rhythmic pumping actions and may start to fibrillate

• this is a squirmy kind of muscle contraction that doesn’t pump blood - called ventricular fibrillation

• most common kind of cardiac arrest and is also most treatable with defibrillation

what is cpr

• emergency lifesaving procedure, performed when someone’s heart stops beating

• often taught as Compression-Only CPR

what is defibrillation

• an automated external defibrillator (AED) is a small computerized device that delivers a special kind of show to the heart

• when the heart is in ventricular fibrillation, the AED is trying to stop the squirmy action and kick start it

• trying to rest the heart muscle and restore its smooth pumping action

• when you deliver the shock and the heart stops fibrillation you have de-fibrillated it → called defibrillation

PAD: Public Access Defibrillation

• new, small, easy to use defibrillators hanging on walls in lots of places, like fire extinguishers

• Lifeguards, security guards, hotel desk clerks, servers are being trained to use them → for general public to use

what is a stroke

• Arteries to the heart can get blocked by junk like fat or cholesterol, the area of the heart muscle that the artery nourishes suddenly receives no circulation(no blood circulation so no oxygen), and the person experiences a heart attack

• same in the brain

• an artery can become blocked by junk like fat or cholesterol

• when the area of the brain nourished by that artery has no oxygen, gets damaged

• as a result, a person may have slurred speech, vision problems, sudden weakness of face, arm, or leg