Kids Can Save Lives: Even The Young Should Learn CPR

   

KIDS, even as young as 9 years old, can and should learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

Austrian researchers studied 147 grade-schoolers after they received six hours of life-support training. Testing showed that 86 percent of the kids performed CPR correctly  -- four months after the training. Led by Dr. Fritz Sterz, from the Medical University of Vienna, the study is reported in the journal Critical Care's current issue.

KIDS RULE

Apparently school authorities questioned the usefulness of CPR training in schools believing that young students might not have the physical and cognitive skills needed to perform CPR's complex tasks correctly or retain the knowledge over time.  But they were wrong. Kids rule!

During the training program, the children were taught how to: check vital signs, perform CPR, use automatic defibrillators, the correct recovery position and how to call for emergency services, according to Medical News Today. 

KIDS DO CPR SAME AS ADULTS

Researchers found that almost nine out of 10 students performed CPR correctly. They said the retention and performance of the students was "compelling" and that it was "remarkably similar, if not better, than that reported in adults."

Dr. Benjamin Abella, Center for Resuscitation Science at the University of Pennsylvania, said that schools "represent an important and largely untapped opportunity to broadly educated our communities about CPR and saving lives."

WE GIVE KIDS TOO LITTLE CREDIT

"We always tend to give kids too little credit regarding how much they can understand and process about serious adult issues," said Abella, as reported by ABC News.

The experts say we have unacceptably low rates of CPR around our country and that it's more important to teach people between 65 and 75, those most likely to suffer cardiac arrest, than to teach children. It's the victims' spouses who need to know CPR they say. 

I say the more people -- both young and old -- who know how to perform CPR, the better. There could be a kid nearby who could do CPR more effectively than an emotionally traumatized spouse. Also kids could show their grandparents, and other adults around them, what they've learned and how to do CPR. Don't forget kids rule! And we're always under-estimating them. 

TO READ "BE STILL MY HEART: DEFIBRILLATE! DEFIBRILLATE! BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE," CLICK HERE.

By Sharon McEachern