What is CPR (Life Support)? How and When to Apply?

CPR is a first aid method used to revive a person in cases such as sudden cardiac arrest or inability to breathe. CPR is short for “cardiopulmonary resuscitation.” “Cardio” refers to the heart and “pulmonary” refers to the lungs. Resuscitation is external supportive intervention to a person whose breathing or blood circulation has stopped. Practice is vital. The part of these interventions performed without the use of any medication or device is called "basic life support". In this article, I will talk about the importance of CPR, how and when to apply it. First aid methods, which concern all of us, are a very important and serious issue, especially for families caring for patients at home.

CPR application is the whole of the methods applied in emergency cases such as sudden stop of the heart and breathing. This practice is also known as heart massage and artificial respiration. If CPR is applied within four minutes at the latest in cases of cardiac arrest or breathing difficulties, 7% of patients come back to life without any problems. No brain damage usually occurs within the first four minutes. If CPR is started within this period, there is a high chance of saving the patient without permanent damage. Brain damage begins within 4-10 minutes. After 10 minutes, permanent and serious damage begins to occur in the brain. Therefore, CPR is a first aid method that should be applied as soon as possible.

The majority of deaths from cardiac arrest are due to failure to perform CPR and not being able to reach the hospital on time. Especially with CPR performed consciously, the chance of patients returning to life increases. We know the importance of first aid because of the events we have experienced or heard about. Therefore, knowing the details of CPR practices can be lifesaving in any emergency situation.
When to Perform CPR?
“Cardiac arrest” is the interruption of blood circulation in the body due to the heart stopping. It usually occurs as a result of heart rhythm irregularities. 75% of cardiac arrest cases occur at home. Especially for people who are alone at home, such a situation can have serious consequences. The mortality rate is high in people who experience this problem alone at home.

How can we understand if something like this happens to someone close to us? This is a pretty scary question for many people. In such a situation, we must first remain calm and check the vital functions of the sick person. Some or all of the following symptoms may occur before or after “cardiac arrest”:

-Heart palpitations
-Feeling dizzy and lightheaded right before fainting
-Chest pain
-Nausea and vomiting
-Loss of consciousness
-No pulse, blood pressure dropping to zero
-Abnormal breathing
-Respiratory arrest


Some of the problems I mentioned above may be noticed by the patient. However, the time until unconsciousness will be very short. In this case, the patient himself will not have time to take any precautions. If you see signs of cardiac arrest in someone close to you, you should remain calm and call 112 emergency services immediately. You must inform the authorities of your full address and follow the instructions. What you need to do next is to prepare for first aid applications. If there is more than one person with the patient, one should call for help while the other begins first aid in order to avoid wasting time. If you are at home and the only person with the patient, do not forget to leave the outside door open. In the meantime, there may be people coming to help you.

First of all, if there is a doctor, nurse or any healthcare worker around, you should ask for help from them. If not, you should apply CPR to ensure the patient's survival until the ambulance and medical teams arrive. If first aid is not given in time to a person whose heart and breathing stops, the brain, which is left without oxygen for about 10 minutes, will begin to be irreversibly damaged. Even if the patient returns to life, permanent problems may occur in his body. Therefore, CPR should be started as soon as possible. It should be continued without stopping until the medical teams arrive.

CPR application can be explained in its simplest form as blowing air from the patient's mouth (artificial respiration) and applying manual pressure to the area where the heart is located (heart massage). While blowing air from the person's mouth allows air to flow to the lungs, applying pressure to the rib cage ensures that the heart continues to pump blood. In this way, blood flow will continue to other organs and tissues, especially the brain.

How to Perform CPR?
CPR application in adults, children and babies is slightly different from each other. Performing CPR on an adult patient is as follows:

First of all, the patient is checked by asking simple questions to see if he/she answers. If there is no response from the patient and there are signs of cardiac arrest, 112 emergency services are called immediately and CPR is started.

Jaw Thrust


Head Tilt Chin Lift

After making sure that our own safety, the environment and the patient's safety are ensured first, the patient is laid on his back on a flat and hard surface with as little movement as possible. Neck or spine trauma may occur due to the incident experienced by the patient. Therefore, the person may need to be treated very carefully. In fact, the neck section should be fixed as much as possible. If neck trauma is suspected, the lower jaw thrust is applied to make the airway open. If there is no suspicion of trauma, the patient's head is pushed back by holding the person's forehead with one hand and the chin with the other. This is called the head tilt chin lift maneuver. Thanks to these methods, the respiratory tract will be opened, and it will be possible to check more easily whether the patient is breathing and whether the respiratory tract is blocked by an object. If it is clogged, the substances there must first be cleaned. Clearing the airway can be done more easily by turning the patient on his or her side before starting CPR procedures. The person performing CPR should move to the patient's side and start performing CPR after the respiratory tract is cleared. If there is a second assistant, he/she should stand by the patient's head and provide the airway opening maneuver for artificial respiration. If the person is not breathing and there is no heartbeat, the patient's nose is closed and a rescue breath is blown through the mouth for two seconds. Hygiene can be ensured by placing an air-permeable cloth over the mouth. Thanks to the breath given through the mouth, the patient's rib cage should move upwards. If the rib cage does not move, exhalation should be continued. If the patient's rib cage does not move despite strong breathing, there is an obstruction in the airway. First of all, this blockage must be cleared. Approximately 0.8 – 1.2 liters of air should be blown into the patient's lungs per minute. You can achieve this volume by inflating both cheeks as if blowing a balloon.Not all of the air we blow out is carbon dioxide gas. The breath we exhale to a person contains enough oxygen to meet his/her needs.


Heart massage should be started after the patient has breathed twice and seen the chest moving. The lower and upper points of the section known as the sternum (sternum or breastbone) are determined. It is divided imaginary into two equal parts, upper and lower, with the help of fingers. The rescuer places the part where the palm meets the wrist in the determined lower part. He places his other hand on top of the hand placed on the patient's ribcage and lifts the fingers of the lower hand up so that they do not touch the ribcage. The reason for this is to prevent the pressure to be applied from damaging the ribs and to ensure that the force is transmitted directly to the sternum. Heart massage is started by supporting the shoulders and waist at a right angle, without disturbing the appropriate hand position and without bending the arms at the elbows. The suppression time should be equal to the release time. During the relaxation phase, the chest should be allowed to return to its normal position.
The arms must be positioned at a right angle to transmit power effectively. Otherwise, the rescuer performing CPR will tire quickly due to excessive effort. With support from the shoulders and waist, and using the body weight, the patient's rib cage is lowered by approximately 5 cm and pressed and released. In this way, printing is applied 30 times, faster than approximately once per second, at a speed of 100-120 prints per minute. 30 presses should take about 20 seconds. When counting CPR, the rhythm can be adjusted by saying “and” between single-digit numbers (for example: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 and …), since it takes longer to say double-digit numbers, there is no need to add the word “and” between them. there are none (for example: … 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30). Then the patient is given 2 more breaths. CPR is continued in the form of 2 breaths and 30 heart messages until the patient breathes spontaneously or the medical team arrives. A round of 2 breaths and 30 heart messages is called “1 cycle”. At the completion of every 5 cycles, the patient's vital signs should be checked.
If the rescuer is the only person, he should quickly move to the side of the patient's chest during heart massage and to the side of the head during artificial respiration without wasting time. If there are two people with the patient during CPR application, one can perform heart massage while the other continues blowing air into the lungs (artificial respiration). Since heart massage is a very tiring procedure, the position can be changed every 2 minutes.


If breathing and heartbeat have returned, the patient should be turned on her side and given a recovery position and vital functions should be checked regularly.
Is CPR Risky?
Applying CPR has no fatal risk. On the contrary, thousands of people come back to life thanks to CPR. Pressure on the chest can damage tissues or break ribs. During CPR, infection transmission is very rare. There is no record of the transmission of diseases such as AIDS.