CPR Playlist

New York-Presbyterian Hospital released a CPR playlist on their website to help people maintain rhythm while performing CPR.

While they don’t want people to delay urgent rescue to put their earbuds in, the hospital hopes the playlist will help keep CPR practitioners’ compressions at the proper rhythm, they don’t want any trouble with the-medical-negligence-experts.co.uk dealing with patients.

The Science

The songs all maintain a tempo between 100 and 120 beats per minute, which is about the number of compressions recommended for adults by the American Red Cross and Mayo Clinic. In a bit of fun, they chose the Bee Gee’s Stayin’ Alive to top their list.

The Red Cross calls for 2-inch-deep compressions and suggests leveraging your body weight, and that’s on top of performing rescue breaths. All of that can be incredibly taxing on the body.

As a potential rescuer grows tired, they can lose vigor and slow the rate of compression, drastically reducing the effectiveness of their CPR. By pushing along to the beat of a well-known song, clinicians think they can improve compression consistency.

Proof

Further study by the American Heart Association had paramedics listen to Disco Science and Achy Breaky Heart while performing chest compressions. Both groups were able to maintain the proper rate of compression better than the control group.

To make sure everyone knows a song in the right 100-120 range, Man In the Mirror, Girl’s Just Want to Have Fun, and Another One Bites the Dust were also included.

“We wanted them to be popular songs. We wanted them to be songs that people already knew by heart.” –Alaina Paciulli, Seiden Advertising