During CPR, more chest compressions mean more saved lives

The chance that a person in cardiac arrest will survive increases when rescuers doing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) spend more time giving chest compressions, according to a multi-center study reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

“Chest compressions move blood with oxygen to the heart and the brain to save the brain and prepare the heart to start up its own rhythm when a shock is delivered with a defibrillator,” said Jim Christenson, M.D., lead author of the study and clinical professor of emergency medicine at the University of British Columbia. “We found that even short pauses in chest compressions were quite detrimental.”

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