Study showed patients who had longer treatment survived more frequently, with no worse neurological function.
There's no national benchmark on how long medical staff in a hospital should continue resuscitation efforts for a patient who has gone into cardiac arrest. The number of minutes spent performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can vary widely.
A study of hundreds of U.S. hospitals this year indicated that more patients might survive if personnel kept going with CPR a few minutes longer.
That study, published in September in the British medical journal The Lancet, was named the No. 1 advance in heart/stroke research of 2012 by the American Heart Association this week.
The research looked at 64,339 patients who went into cardiac arrest while they were patients at 435 American hospitals between 2000 and 2008. At hospitals that performed CPR the longest (a median of 25 minutes), patients were 16 percent more likely to survive the ordeal than patients at hospitals that performed CPR for the shortest duration (a median of 16 minutes).
The conventional wisdom among the medical community seems to hold that CPR dragging on and on will only leave a patient neurologically impaired, if they survive at all. But the study turned that thinking on its head: Patients who had longer CPR survived more frequently, and had no worse neurological function than patients who had shorter-duration CPR.
for solo music stars
Take heed, those of you who aspire to be on "The Voice:" Having bandmates around you when you hit the big time could lengthen your life.
The journal BMJ Open found that successful solo rock and pop performers are about twice as likely to die young as stars of equally famous groups.
The study examined 1,489 North American and European stars across five decades, from 1956 (Elvis Presley) to 2006 (Regina Spektor and the Arctic Monkeys ... remember them?) So that means Amy Winehouse, who died of alcohol intoxication in 2011, wasn't included.
During the 50-year study period, 9.2 percent of the stars (137) died, with the average age being 45 for the North American performers and 39 for the Europeans. Among the North Americans, 22.8 percent of solo acts died early, compared with 10.2 percent who were in a band. In Europe, 9.8 percent died before their time, compared with 5.4 percent of band members.
"A successful solo career may be a proxy for fame," the study's authors said in an accompanying release, but "it also raises the question of whether the peer support offered by bandmates may be protective."
in Yorba Linda
LifeStream is holding a blood drive at the Starbucks at 17474 Yorba Linda Blvd., in Yorba Linda, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday.
Donors will receive a coupon for a free tall coffee or iced coffee, as well as a free movie ticket.
Donors must be at least 15 years old. Those who are 15 or 16 must provide a written parental consent.
For more information, visit lstream.org.
Contact the writer: firstname.lastname@example.org or 714-796-2221
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