Hands-Only CPR

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By Gina Roberts-Grey

Experts have found that performing just the chest compressions during CPR can still save lives (no mouth-to-mouth required). Here's how to do it.

Two-thirds of adults who need CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) don’t receive it because bystanders are worried they may cause harm to the person in distress, according to the American Heart Association.

“People are afraid they’re not going to be able to coordinate breathing and compression, or they fear being exposed to germs or infection,” says Katarina Bohm, R.N., Ph.D., who led a 15-year retrospective study of 11,275 cardiac arrests that happened outside hospitals in Sweden.
           
Now there is another option. Bohm and researchers at Japan’s Kyoto University Health Service have developed “hands-only” CPR.

There’s no mouth-to-mouth breathing—only chest compressions. Although experts say standard CPR is preferred, chest compressions alone can help someone in cardiac arrest, Bohm says. “If you hesitate to do CPR, remember that chest compressions only is better than nothing,” she says.