I took a CPR/AED class last night to refresh my training since my certificate expires in February.  The new rules are interesting, in that they’ve made things a little simpler by making the compression/breaths/repeats cycle the same for children and adults.  They also increased the number of compressions that are given so that it’s now 30 compressions followed by two breaths and the whole cycle is repeated 5 times.

However, the new rules result in CPR being more tiring.  I suspect that someone who doesn’t do CPR a lot (i.e. the majority of us) would be pretty tired if he or she had to do CPR for more than two or three minutes.

Also of interest is the change in AED guidelines.  Previously, AED’s would analyze the heart rhythm and then advise whether to shock or not.  After the shock it would reanalyze and advise to give another shock or not.  The rules no longer call for these “stacked shocks.”  Now you’re supposed to give one shock if advised and then evaluate the patient and continue CPR for another cycle (30/2×5) and then analyze with the AED again.  The older AED’s that are out there don’t do this, so you just have to know it.  Newer AED’s have the newer programming and will guide you correctly.

I’m told that all of the ones in Keller city buildings will eventually be reprogrammed with the new rules as soon as Medtronics sends the software and cable for the Lifepak 500 models that we have.