CPR Guidelines: How and Why to Make Updates Regularly

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, is an emergency lifesaving procedure performed when someone’s breathing or heartbeat has stopped, allowing one to save someone’s life. One, therefore, needs up-to-date courses.

Why It’s So Vital to Keep up with these Changes

Guidelines for CPR are constantly changing to accommodate new results from research and scientific studies. Medical experts study the effectiveness of different techniques used in CPR and ways to make it more effective. When better means are found, they change the guidelines to ensure everyone who learns to do it uses the best techniques. These updates improve the chances of survival following an arrest or other life-threatening manifestation.

The Importance of Staying Updated

Knowing the current recommendations regarding CPR is essential for several reasons:

1. Using the Most Effective Techniques

Science is dynamic and has evolved CPR techniques through enhanced knowledge of how the body responds during cardiac arrest. For instance, chest compressions used to be performed differently than they are today. Advances in technique were aimed at improving performance. Staying current with the most up-to-date guidelines ensures you can utilize the most effective methods in helping someone in distress.

2. Improved Survival Rates

The primary purpose of CPR is to keep blood flowing to the brain and other organs until medical experts take over. When you apply the most current guidelines, you utilize techniques proven to save more lives. By keeping current, you are providing the best chance for survival of the person you are trying to help.

3. Building Confidence

Knowing you’re performing current techniques within CPR will give you the confidence to handle an emergency. You have practiced the latest methods, and understanding why they work tears down barriers to doing CPR effectively. This will be a game-changer regarding how well you react should something happen to someone around you.

4. Ready for Anything

Remember the following information: From CPR recommendations for adults, children, and infants to guidelines for using an automated external defibrillator (AED) and performing CPR while alone or in a crowded place, it’s essential to keep your skills up to date.

How to Stay Updated

It’s easier than you think to stay up-to-date on the guidelines for CPR. Here are some of the ways you can help ensure that you are always ready:

1. Take Refresher Courses

Moreover, one of the best ways to stay updated is to take CPR refresher courses, which are intended to review current information while offering participants practical practice with the most recent skills. So, even if you have taken a course in CPR, you surely need to sharpen your skills occasionally.

2. Follow Credible Sources

Watch for guideline changes from credible sources like the American Heart Association. The guidelines for performing CPR are due for review and update, and many other sources can keep you updated.

Below is the list of the top 5 credible sources you can follow:

• American Heart Association
• Red Cross
• National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Providers
  

3. Regular Practice

You never know when you might need CPR, but practice makes perfect. Regular practice reinforces the most recent techniques so that you can act with a certain level of readiness in an emergency. Regularly working through the paces independently or with others in a CPR course can keep your skills sharp.

Enroll at Northwest Career College

If you are ready to learn CPR or want to refresh your skills, become a student at Northwest Career College—accepted for unbeatable training in the latest CPR protocols. The importance of learning current CPR cannot be overstated, and we are committed to helping you every step of the way. There is no more straightforward journey than being guided from layman to confident responder.