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CPR Music

Lifesaving Beats: Songs can help with CPR training

The familiar tune of the Bee Gees song “Staying Alive” has been used for medical training for quite a few years now. It has the right beat and the perfect title for providing CPR chest compressions at the right pace to revive a patient.

The 1977 hit song has a rhythm of 103 beats per minute which is close to the recommended rate of at least 100 chest compressions per 60 seconds that should be delivered during CPR.

Although the song seems to be the perfect sound track for CPR, it does have some drawbacks. Namely, it is an American song, so not everyone around the world is familiar with it. However, there are other songs with the right beat that might do just as well, according to researchers in Japan.

The researchers used two music tracks in the study. One was The Beatles “Ob-la-di-ob.-la-da”, which is famous in Japan as well as in the US and elsewhere. The other track was an entirely new song composed by children, which the researchers called “New Melody”.

The power that music has to help people memorize has long been noted.

Research has proven that with any song, nurses performed chest compressions better than they did without music.

Receiving high quality CPR can double, or even triple, a person’s chance of surviving cardiac arrest outside the hospital.

Researchers have found the solution to master adequate CPR skills is to put the educational words on several famous songs with 112 bpm and 8 beats per measure.

There are plenty of songs across every genre that meet the tempo requirements, including:

  • Disciple by Slayer
  • Rock your body by Justin Timberlake
  • Hips don’t lie by Shakira
  • 9-5 by Dolly Parton
  • Another on bites the dust by Queen
  • Problem by Ariana Grande

Some medical professional actually do not believe that administering CPR to any sort of music is effective because the person performing compressions is not focused enough to ensure that the compressions are hard and deep enough to make any difference. Others, meanwhile, believe that it does not make any difference and, even if it did, any type of CPR is better than no CPR.

http://www.livescience.com/48863-lifesaving-beats-songs-can-help-with-cpr-training.html