Tuesday, May 5, 2009

How More Cardiac Arrest Sufferers can be Saved?

Not one or two but 325,000 people die each year in the United States due to Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA). However, when CPR - Cardiopulmonary resuscitation, is provided immediately after the attack it can double a sufferers chance of survival.

But administering CPR, unlike a pharma drug, is easier said than done, here's why? When in a study, thirty-eight doctors and nurses of both genders were evaluated for their ability to perform manual CPR, a considerable loss in their ability to provide sufficient compressions over a time period was found. And that men – supposedly endowed with more muscle power – fared no better than their fairer sex counterparts.

So what if there existed a medical device that was so portable that it didn't need to be transported using a hospital trolley, instead, could simply be strapped around a patient to aid immediate CPR, virtually anywhere and in any situation? Well it seems that the the wait could now be over, as scientists may have struck gold already.

A Life Saving Medical Device

Inventors of the device called, LifeBelt(R) CPR, may be on their way to make life safer with this appliance. This device is designed to overcome the limitation of "hands-only" CPR and is able to help the patient by producing chest compressions for about two minutes. Also, with the use of this device half as much force is needed to administer CPR, enabling the emergency response personnel or anyone providing the CPR to do it more effectively, and not lose steam out of fatigue, too soon. No wonder than this appliance also won a “Create the Future Design Contest” sponsored by NASA Tech Briefs magazine.

When Thomas Jefferson said “Where a new invention promises to be useful, it ought to be tried,” I'm positive he didn't refer to life support medical devices!

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