Basic life support (BLS) is a level of medical care which is used for patients with life-threatening condition of cardiac arrest until they can be given full medical care by advanced life support providers (paramedics, nurses, physicians or any trained general personnel).
The ILCOR representatives come from various countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and from the European, Asian, and African continents.
In 2005, the committee published International Consensus on Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and Emergency Cardiovascular Care (ECC) Science with Treatment Recommendations.
Checking for response is the next step in emergency situations as continuing with other forceful methods of BLS could exacerbate the patient's condition and can be seen as assault.
AVPU (Alert, Verbal, Pain, Unconscious) is the commonly used acronym for quickly assessing the level of consciousness in a patient.
In this situation, early defibrillation is the key to returning the patient's heart back to a normal rhythm.
[5] However, if one part were to fail, important resources for cellular respiration such as oxygen would not be able to reach the organs that needs it function.
Moreover, disruptions may present specifically to each component or multiple systems may be affected at the same time, which generally results in the 3 designated types of shock: Obstructive, Distributive, Hypovolemic.
Since the primary cause of cardiac arrest and death in drowning and choking patients is hypoxemia, it is recommended to start with rescue breaths before proceeding to chest compressions (if pulseless).
Rescuers should only intervene in patients who show signs of severe airway obstruction, such as a silent cough, cyanosis, or inability to speak or breathe.
If a patient becomes unresponsive he should be lowered to the ground, and the rescuer should call emergency medical services and initiate CPR.
However, the American Heart Association's BLS protocol is designed for use by laypeople, as well as students and others certified first responder, and to some extent, higher medical function personnel.
However, an online BLS course must be followed with an in-person skills session in order to obtain a certification issued by The American Heart Association.
United Kingdom Adult BLS guidelines in the United Kingdom were published in 2015 by the Resuscitation Council (UK),[13] based on the 2015 International Consensus on Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care Science with Treatment Recommendations (CoSTR) published in November 2005.
[14] The newest guidelines for adult BLS allow a rescuer to diagnose cardiac arrest if the patient is unresponsive and not breathing normally.
When performing BLS, laypeople and medical personnel are encouraged to remember that some groups of people have certain conditions that need to be taken into considerations.
[citation needed] To relieve choking, abdominal thrusts should not be used in infants under 1 year of age due to risk of causing injury.