Quality of basic life support when using different commercially available public access defibrillators

Quality of basic life support when using different commercially available public access defibrillators

BACKGROUND Basic life support (BLS) guidelines focus on chest compressions with a minimal no-flow fraction (NFF), early defibrillation, and a short perishock pause. By using an automated external defibrillator (AED) lay persons are guided through the process of attaching electrodes and initiating defibrillation. It is unclear, however, to what extent the voice instructions given by the AED migh...

Diagnostic Accuracy of Commercially Available Automated External Defibrillators

BACKGROUND Although automated external defibrillators (AEDs) have contributed to a better survival of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, there have been reports of their malfunctioning. We investigated the diagnostic accuracy of commercially available AEDs using surface ECGs of ventricular fibrillation (VF), ventricular tachycardia (VT), and supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). METHODS AND RESUL...

Optimizing the Deployment of Public Access Defibrillators

Identifying locations for public access defibrillators using mathematical optimization.

BACKGROUND Geospatial methods using mathematical optimization to identify clusters of cardiac arrests and prioritize public locations for defibrillator deployment have not been studied. Our objective was to develop such a method and test its performance against a population-guided approach. METHODS AND RESULTS All public location cardiac arrests in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, from December 16, ...

Basic life support.

The term basic life support (BLS) refers to maintaining an airway and supporting breathing and the circulation. It comprises the following elements: initial assessment, airway maintenance, expired air ventilation (rescue breathing; mouth-to-mouth ventilation) and chest compression. When all are combined the term cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is used. BLS implies that no equipment is used;...