If you have taken a corporate onsite CPR training course, chances are that you have learned how to use an automated external defibrillator, or AED. However, before you use an AED on someone that you suspect is experiencing a cardiac arrest episode, you should take a moment to check on the individual.

If you witness an individual collapsing or passing out, or if you come upon an individual who is already unconscious, you should confirm that the individual is unresponsive. You should shout and shake them to make sure they’re not just sleeping. Keep in mind though, that you should never shake an infant or very young child. Instead, you should pinch children in an attempt to wake them up.

What to Do

Before getting out the automated external defibrillator, you should call for emergency personnel. If there is someone else with you, have them call for emergency personnel and get the AED while you are performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, which you can learn through a corporate onsite CPR training class.

After calling for emergency personnel and ensuring that they are on the way, you should check the person for a pulse and for breathing. If you notice that either of these are irregular or even absent, you should make preparations to use the AED as soon as possible. Cardiac arrest episodes can result in death if not treated within a few minutes.

If you did not witness the collapse and there is no one who knows the length of time that an individual has been unconscious, or if you don’t have an automated electronic defibrillator, you should do two minutes of CPR. You will be instructed in the proper CPR techniques in a corporate onsite CPR training course.

The American Heart Association encourages you to use “hands-only” CPR instead of traditional CPR. The point is to encourage the oxygenated blood to flow through the individual’s vital organs. Teens and adults have enough oxygen in their bodies to keep their vital organs alive until help arrives. You should do compressions at a rate of 100 per minute.

After you use an AED, or if you do not have access to an AED, you should keep giving CPR until medical help arrives or the person has been revived. You should try to limit your pauses between cycles of CPR.

If you do have access to an AED, after two minutes, you should use the AED to check the individual’s heart rhythm and then, if necessary, give another shock. If another shock is not necessary, simply continue offering cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

How to Use an AED

If you take a corporate onsite CPR training class, you will learn how to properly use an AED. If you have not taken one and don’t have plans in the near future to do so, the following instructions can help you.

Automated External Defibrillators are user-friendly machines that even the untrained bystander can use in order to save the life of an individual who is suffering from a cardiac arrest episode.

Due to the fact that an AED uses electric shock, you will need to make sure that the victim is not near any water or puddles. If they are, try to move them to a dry area – avoid any type of wetness when delivering shocks to a victim.

Turn on the power to the AED. You will see that the device will give you both on-screen prompts and voice prompts on how to use it.

First, expose the victim’s chest. If their chest is wet, dry it. You will see that the AED has sticky pads that have sensors known as electrodes. Look at the pictures on the AED and apply the pads to the victim’s chest as instructed. Make sure that the pads have a strong connection with the skin.

Make sure to remove any metal necklaces or underwire bras – metal could conduct electricity and cause burns. Also, check for any medical devices or body piercings. If either of these are present, keep the pads at least one inch away from them.

Make sure electrodes are connected properly to the AED and no one is touching the victim. Then, press the “analyze” button and the machine will check the victim’s heart rate. If shock is necessary, the AED will let you know when to do so.

As you are instructed in corporate onsite CPR training courses, you will begin or continue CPR until medical personnel arrive or the victim has been revived.

Sources:

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/aed/howtouse

Swedish physiologists Jean-Louis Prévost and Frédéric Batelli are credited with inventing the world’s first defibrillator in 1899. During their experiments, they concluded that small electric shocks could produce ventricular fibrillation but larger ones could have the opposite effect by restarting the heart. Prévost and Batelli’s defibrillator, however, was restricted for use in veterinarian practices.

It wasn’t until 1947 when professor Claude Beck of Case Western Reserve University used the defibrillator on a human for the first time. Beck was performing open heart surgery on a young boy who suffered from a congenital heart defect when the boy’s heart stopped. Beck and his team of assistants manually massaged the boy’s heart for nearly an hour before eventually using a defibrillator to promote a normal sinus rhythm. The success of this practice laid the groundwork for future surgeons and cardiologists, essentially showing the world that defibrillation can save lives.

These early model defibrillator ran off alternating current (AC) power from a nearby wall outlet (usually between 300-100o volts of electricity), and they were only useful during open heart surgery. This greatly restricted their utility, but it wasn’t before new, high-tech models hit the medical field.

Irish professor Frank Pantridge of Belfast made a ground-breaking developing in defibrillators during the 1960s by turning these otherwise bulky units into compact, easy-to-transport models. While the design and features of portable defibrillators have undergone a serious of chances since then, its purpose remains the same: to provide a jolt of electricity to a cardiac arrest victim’s heart in an effort to create a normal sinus rhythm. The portable defibrillator is a staple tool used by Emergency Medical Service (EMS) workers.

Modern-day science has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for defibrillator. One of the most recent advancements in this field includes the use of  biphasic waveform. By alternating pulse directions, biphasic defibrillators tend to have a higher success rate.  A small study found the success rate of ventricular fibrillation (VF) to be 60%, whereas the success rate of biphasic defibrillation was 90%.