Disco tune "Stayin' Alive" could save your life:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. doctors have found the Bee Gees 1977 disco anthem "Stayin' Alive" provides an ideal beat to follow while performing chest compressions as part of CPR on a heart attack victim.
The American Heart Association calls for chest compressions to be given at a rate of 100 per minute in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). "Stayin' Alive" almost perfectly matches that, with 103 beats per minute.
CPR is a lifesaving technique involving chest compressions alone or with mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing. It is used in emergencies such as cardiac arrest in which a person's breathing or heartbeat has stopped.
CPR can triple survival rates, but some people are reluctant to do it in part because they are unsure about the proper rhythm for chest compressions. But research has shown many people do chest compressions too slowly during CPR. Now, it's been proven that if people use John Travolta's patented north south finger point at the same time they are pumping a non-responsive chest they can actually recesitate the victim twice as fast.
In a small study headed by Dr. David Matlock of the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria, listening to "Stayin' Alive" helped 15 doctors and medical students to perform chest compressions on dummies at the proper speed. The only side effect was that the twirling dots from the strobe lights made them feel a little nausious and that the professionals were reluctant to work on dummies while wearing tight leather pants and large butterfly collars.
Five weeks after practicing with the music playing, they were asked to perform CPR again on dummies by keeping the song in their minds and though they couldn't escape the memories of the horrible falsetto of the first trials, they kept up a good pace and the end results proved to be the same (even though they ended up doing the splits on the floor this time).
"The theme 'Stayin' Alive' is very appropriate for the situation," Matlock said in a telephone interview on Thursday. "Everybody's heard it at some point in their life. "People know the song and can keep it in their head." "We realize that some of the patients would actually rather be left for dead than to hear this song while being saved" Dr. Matlock said, but he also added "that's a chance we're willing to take."
The findings, after heavy sedation of the audience, will be presented this month at a meeting of the American College of Emergency Physicians in Chicago.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. doctors have found the Bee Gees 1977 disco anthem "Stayin' Alive" provides an ideal beat to follow while performing chest compressions as part of CPR on a heart attack victim.
The American Heart Association calls for chest compressions to be given at a rate of 100 per minute in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). "Stayin' Alive" almost perfectly matches that, with 103 beats per minute.
CPR is a lifesaving technique involving chest compressions alone or with mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing. It is used in emergencies such as cardiac arrest in which a person's breathing or heartbeat has stopped.
CPR can triple survival rates, but some people are reluctant to do it in part because they are unsure about the proper rhythm for chest compressions. But research has shown many people do chest compressions too slowly during CPR. Now, it's been proven that if people use John Travolta's patented north south finger point at the same time they are pumping a non-responsive chest they can actually recesitate the victim twice as fast.
In a small study headed by Dr. David Matlock of the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria, listening to "Stayin' Alive" helped 15 doctors and medical students to perform chest compressions on dummies at the proper speed. The only side effect was that the twirling dots from the strobe lights made them feel a little nausious and that the professionals were reluctant to work on dummies while wearing tight leather pants and large butterfly collars.
Five weeks after practicing with the music playing, they were asked to perform CPR again on dummies by keeping the song in their minds and though they couldn't escape the memories of the horrible falsetto of the first trials, they kept up a good pace and the end results proved to be the same (even though they ended up doing the splits on the floor this time).
"The theme 'Stayin' Alive' is very appropriate for the situation," Matlock said in a telephone interview on Thursday. "Everybody's heard it at some point in their life. "People know the song and can keep it in their head." "We realize that some of the patients would actually rather be left for dead than to hear this song while being saved" Dr. Matlock said, but he also added "that's a chance we're willing to take."
The findings, after heavy sedation of the audience, will be presented this month at a meeting of the American College of Emergency Physicians in Chicago.
