Literally Stayin' Alive

Happy new year! 2012, the year of the Dragon according to the Chinese, the year of the Olympic games in London and the year I graduate from the University of Manchester and begin my pre-registration training in a hospital. Seriously, where has the time GONE?

Anyhow, getting onto the topic of this blog... BBC Breakfast today reported on a new campaign that focuses on educating people about effective CPR, which comprises alternate mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions. In a comedic advertisement by the British Heart Foundation, a somewhat intimidating Vinnie Jones instructs the public to use "hard and fast hands-only" CPR.

Only 1 in 10 people survive a cardiac arrest and close to 30,000 suffer one in public^[1], which amounts to a lot of potentially preventable deaths. CPR remains the gold standard in resuscitation but often people may feel anxious about performing mouth-to-mouth or fear being sued^[2], forget how to perform CPR in the heat of the moment or any number of other actions.

Chest compressions may be enough on its own to revive someone and the main point is, it's better to do something rather than nothing. The advertisement instructs people to pump down onto the centre of the sufferer's chest to the beat of ‘Stayin' Alive' by the Bee Gees; research, bizarrely, has found that the song is one of the best tunes to perform CPR to as it contains 103 beats per minute, which is in the range of 100-120 compressions per minute needed for effective CPR as recommended by the UK Resuscitation Council.

Although the use of music with CPR has been criticised as the compressions often end up being too shallow (the recommended depth is 5-6cm), I believe it's an excellent way to educate the lay public about what to do in such an emergency, particularly if they're alone. At any rate, the advert deals with this issue by instructing "hard and fast" pumping on the person's chest and happening to remember that they must compress to the tune of a well-known song may in actual fact save many more lives.

Here's a line from the Bee Gees' classic:
"Life's going nowhere. Somebody help me"
Eerily relevant. Good luck to all with exams!

The British Heart Foundation advertisement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILxjxfB4zNk

References:

1.    BBC. Vinnie Jones fronts CPR campaign with new advice. BBC News. 04/12/2012 (accessed on 04/01/2012); News. Available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16406257

2.    BBC. British Heart Foundation says ‘No kissing, just hard-and-fast CPR. BBC News. 04/01/2012 (accessed on 04/01/2012); News. Available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16222183