American Heart Association (AHA) revised the basic life support (BLS) and advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) guidelines in December 2005. Although it's hard to predict the long term results of the changes in the guidelines, it's important to make use of them to keep the guidelines universal and also to see whether the changes make the CPR work better.
In this paper we especially want to underline the 5 main changes which are addressed to all rescuers:
1) Emphasis on effective chest compressions,
2) Changes in chest compression to rescue breath ratios,
3) Arrangements in depth and strength of rescue breaths,
4) Changes in defibrillation - CPR sequence in VF, and
5) Recommendations on AED use in children. Along with these, we also believe that the major unchanged approaches are to be stressed to prevent misunderstandings.
Keywords: Basic life support (BLS)F advanced cardiac life support (ACLS), American Heart Association (AHA), rescuer