It’s also a scenario in which the breathing part of CPR is particularly valuable. A lot of front-country CPR courses de-emphasize administering breaths in favor of sustaining chest compressions.
No. Disabled and sick people are all around you. This is why you should have been taught in your CPR class to check for a medical ID tag that might, for example, say that the person doesn't want to be resuscitated.
Also just because someone is disabled doesn't necessarily mean they don't want CPR. That's their choice and not yours, just respect it. Denying disabled people CPR without consent during the pandemic in the UK and Canada did significant damage to public education around when you might want not want CPR.
I learned CPR on a Wilderness First Responder course. They keep adding more medical training because the wilderness is increasingly accessible to disabled and sick people. The sidewalk in the middle of civilization is much easier to get to than that.
Edit: This is a reason however to continue CPR longer in certain cases like drowning (especially in cold water) and lightning strikes.
You are conflating "disabled" with "dying". A deaf person will have a decent chance of coming back to normal if they survive CPR. An 85-year-old with heart disease will most likely not. The parent was a little vague, but if you read the article the context is clear.
Edit: Furthermore the person I replied two defined group 1 as "otherwise healthy". So I think it's fair for me to have inferred they meant what they said and their only other group includes "sick and very sick" people.
Edit2: Realize I had a significant typo. My post was phrased as a statement and not a question. I added the "Do [original]?"
I often run into people who are deaf, or an amputee, or have type 1 diabetes, etc, but I rarely come across someone that (to my knowledge) has a substantial illness. But I live in a city where I very, very rarely run into someone much over 40 (at that point they are likely to have been married and had children, and the thing nearly everyone does here is move into the suburbs once they’re married with children).
I suspect that where you live makes a huge impact on whether or not you’re surrounded by unhealthy/ill people.
The original point I replied to suggested everyone at a high risk for bad CPR outcomes is in a hospital. Now we're talking about suburbs.
In the US, a DNR is primarily for a medical setting with staff who've already identified you and confirmed its veracity. Withdrawing medical care creates massive liability so providers are going to make sure they got it right before stopping. Lay people do not have the knowledge to make these kinds of decisions.
I've never been taught to even check for a bracelet during any of my CPR trainings, and my wife who's been an EMT for 10 years tells me they will still run the code after being presented a DNR until until they receive a clear confirmation from their medical director to cease.
I was taught in the US to check for a medical ID tag. You've already covered the locations for one bracelet and a necklace during your pulse check. You'll want to know if your patient, for example, caries an EpiPen for a serious allergy.
DNRs are underutilized in the US. As this article points out CPR might not be worth it even if you aren't in hospice care. A DNR would invalidate implied consent so technically doing CPR after seing a DNR tag would be assault.
1) Healthy people, heart stopped by some traumatic event. Survival odds good.
2) Reasonably healthy people, heart attack. Moderate survival odds.
3) People who were already sick. Odds low, success likely isn't worth it.
So probably the optimal message is 1) learn how to do cpr and use it if you ever see someone collapse, but 2) if a doctor suggests that cpr would not be in your or your loved ones best interests, they’re usually right.
I do agree with the author about asking people if they want a “natural death” instead of asking if they want “cpr” or “resuscitation”
* Group One is people like you. Otherwise healthy people who've had some sort of crazy event. CGR gets your body through an acute moment so it can heal and recover on its own.
* Group Two. People that are already sick or very sick. Cardiac arrest is essentially their body failing. Even if CPR is successful, they're have lots of physical trauma that is extremely hard to overcome. Another cardiac arrest is inevitable.
The article does a terrible job of identifying this difference. If you're a member of the general public and you need to give CPR, there's a huge chance you're giving it to someone in Group One. Most people in Group Two are already hospitalized or in some sort of care setting.