<p>Cortana, what is very old? If either my MIL or mother should spontaneously need CPR, I would want it done. What steps to take once the immediate danger has passed, is a decision that has to be discussed and made, but there are times CPR is the way to go. You mean that if a boat tips over, the old folks that need CPR shouldn’t get it due to age? My sons work as lifeguards, and yes, even the very old would get CPR if the need arises in their setting. Unless there is a NO CPR designation on a medical bracelet or other such thing that the person has instructed. To have a policy of no CPR in a place, to prohibit it, does not sound right to me. That deserves sensational reporting.</p>
<p>I wonder if she would have put pressure on a bleeding wound?</p>
<p>CPR may be a tougher call, but where’s the line?</p>
<p>One of my friends has a grandmother who is recuperating from a heart attack & surgery.
She is 95.
Unless clear plans are in place not to administer care, which should be up to the individual, I think it is more ethical to use available resources to help, than withhold them.</p>
<p>Why require CPR training for employment if you are going to prohibit its use?</p>
<p>For those people who think it’s fine that she didn’t administer CPR because she didn’t want her job at risk, or because she’s old, just let her die…why aren’t you addressing the fact that she REFUSED repetitively to give the phone to someone else. It’s not that she just wasn’t willing to lift a finger to do something, she would not allow anyone else to try to help.</p>
<p>I wonder what would happen if the elderly ladies daughter was visiting and collapsed. Or her grandchild. Would they have also ignored the 911 operators request for CPR and disallowed anyone else to help? I don’t think I would want to even visit a place where people were not allowed to help in an emergency.</p>
<p>My grandmother just went to assisted living. My mother, who is extremely diligent, took care of everything. And I’ll bet she has no idea about willingness to administer CPR or lifesaving help at the facility. Having not done this before, it wouldn’t occur to her to ask what most of us would commonly assume would be administered. My grandmother is healthy and relatively young.</p>
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<p>Elderly people are quite prone to infections. It’s unlikely that there were sterile bandages in the dining room, so pressure probably would have been applied with a napkin or dishrag or someone’s sweater. If the resident had then died of an infection, the family would be able to say – correctly – that if they’d waited for the EMTs, she might not have died.</p>
<p>Independent and Assisted Living facilities are quite clear with residents and families that they are NOT nursing homes, and do not render emergency medical care. It sounds like most of us who actually have parents in senior living know about, and are fairly comfortable with, this fact. </p>
<p>For those who aren’t familiar with the way these places work, it would have helped if the article hadn’t used the word “nurse” when it’s more likely that the caller was an “aide.” It would also help if they hadn’t used the term “nursing home” when it was really an “independent living facility.”</p>
<p>It is a " skilled nursing facility".
[Glenwood</a> Gardens Snf in Bakersfield, California | US News Best Nursing Homes](<a href=“http://health.usnews.com/best-nursing-homes/area/ca/glenwood-gardens-snf-555771]Glenwood”>http://health.usnews.com/best-nursing-homes/area/ca/glenwood-gardens-snf-555771)</p>
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<p>But who else was there? Most likely just other employees and elderly residents.</p>
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<p>You’re not going to be able to Heimlich iced tea out of someone’s lungs, but point taken. If this was an independent living facility as noted above rather than an assisted living facility, the woman in question was most likely competent and quite possibly knew and understood the policy. We don’t have that information.</p>
<p>But like others, I find a policy which forbids employees from performing CPR to be really out there. I wonder if this is something common in these types of places. Even a DNR does not mean do not treat, and a choking situation is one with a high degree of success if the Heimlich maneuver is used. This is in contrast to a spontaneous cardiac arrest situation, which rarely ends well in reality, even if it occurs in an ICU with all emergency interventions right at hand.</p>
<p>As to a question above, an AED can be critical in restoring a normal heart rhythm, and the sooner it is used, the better. In a situation where the heart is not beating or is beating in a manner incompatible with life, however, CPR is crucial because that is what mechanically maintains perfusion. The AED does not do provide the mechanical equivalent of a beating heart and breathing lungs, which is why in the hospital we have protocols which include CPR between shocks to maintain the distribution of blood and oxygen to the brain and the heart.</p>
<p>It is incredibly exhausting to properly perform CPR, which is why ideally you would have help to take turns with chest compressions. </p>
<p>I can understand why someone would hesitate to do something which could result in being ruined financially or being prevented from working in the future. They have families who depend on them and the reality of that could cause that person to feel torn. What I don’t get is the appearance of having no concern at all for this poor lady. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t give someone else the opportunity to help if they felt they couldn’t risk it. It just seems the “nurse” didn’t give a rat’s patoot, and that is pretty disturbing.</p>
<p>Or not so skilled.
[Glenwood</a> Gardens SNF - Citations - Nursing Home Guide](<a href=“http://www.nursinghomeguide.org/NHG/action.lasso?-database=w_main&-layout=m_cit&-response=/NHG/nhg_enf_citations.lasso&ID_CISACLAIMSID=120001395&-token.fid=120001395&-token.pid=120001395&-search]Glenwood”>http://www.nursinghomeguide.org/NHG/action.lasso?-database=w_main&-layout=m_cit&-response=/NHG/nhg_enf_citations.lasso&ID_CISACLAIMSID=120001395&-token.fid=120001395&-token.pid=120001395&-search)</p>
<p>If the elderly woman involved was able to live in a facility that only provided minimal care, instead of a nursing home, she must have been fairly healthy considering, and may have lived for several more years.</p>
<p>But this is a for profit facility, and perhaps her unit can now bring more money.</p>
<p>My mother, up to a year ago, was in an assisted living facility. My mother would be allowed to sit in a wheelchair for days, with a festering cellulitis in her legs, until they finally would call the ambulance to bring her to the hospital. And I had to pay the bill for the ambulance, as it was called “nonemergency care”.</p>
<p>She is now in a nursing home, and when her leg gets to acting up, they call the doctor and start treating her right away. Despite having an episode of cellulitis, she did not have to go to the hospital. It was taken care of at the facility.</p>
<p>Now, at Mom’s assisted living, people would die all the time. It was my impression that the staff just found them deceased in their bed. Mom did have a button on a chain around her neck, but never used it.</p>
<p>In the nursing home, she’s in a real hospital bed with a nurse’s call button. She’s ambulatory in a wheelchair, so she’s never in her room, so I don’t know how often she uses it. She does have a bedbound, nonvocal roommate, who they get out of bed and put in a wheelchair to bring her out to socialize and have meals.</p>
<p>As for DNR, we do have something in place that if Mom was to code, to just let her go, don’t take any resuscitative actions. When she was in the assisted living, she did not have that in effect, but luckily, we never had a chance to play that out.</p>
<p>I am actually shocked to hear that a for profit place did not administer CPR to help this woman. I am astonished at how long the elderly stay alive in these facilities. Back when I was growing up, when your elder went into a home, they were dead within weeks. Though not a fan of lawsuits, one can see how the quality of care in facilities has improved over the years. Problem is, the economy hasn’t progressed to the point where we can afford to keep these elders alive for as long as these for profit places want to rake in the money, which seems indefinite in the places we’ve been lucky enough to have my mom in.</p>
<p>Mom will have to go on Medicaid this year, and my sister is terrified that Mom will die shortly after. I don’t think that will be the case, as many for profit facilities have Medicaid beds and they are held to very high standards of care. Plus, the longer they keep their residents alive, the more money they can make, so it’s to their benefit to have the best care they can in their facility.</p>
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<p>emerald, it appears from the quote in post 69 that Glenwood gardens has an independent living facility, an assisted living facility, and a skilled nursing facility. Based on the quote below, I’m inferring that the incident took place in the independent living facility.</p>
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<p>“He said the policy does not apply at the adjacent assisted living and skilled nursing facilities.”</p>
<p>It seems really odd that life-saving measures would not be allowed at a facility that serves relatively healthy people, but they can be applied at the facilities just next door, where people are less healthy. Makes you wonder if it all comes down to money. You aren’t paying enough to get the full service treatment.</p>
<p>^^^^well, I wondered if it comes down to the type of personnel working at the independent living facility. This may be all about liability, i.e. the employees at the independent living facility are not licensed healthcare professionals (so they are paid less) and they don’t want them practicing out of their scope. I don’t know why they wouldn’t want everyone certified in CPR, however, because your average lay person can certainly get CPR certification.</p>
<p>I’m a CPR instructor, so i don’t even know where to start will all the comments and missinformation here…</p>
<p>Just a few facts:
- CPR, even properly administered, will break ribs, especially if the patient is 50+.
- an AED, not CPR, will save your life. In adults, most cardiac events are caused by a disruption in the electrical system of the heart generally caused by a blocked artery. The AED gets the cells in the heart firing together. CPR attempts to keep blood flowing to the brain, which will die within 4-6 minutes.
- Heart attacks in the elderly (over 80) are often caused by a weak heart muscle often associated with a build up of fluid in the lungs. Perfect CPR, along with an AED, will not save this person.<br>
- new American Heart guidelines promote Hands-only CPR. </p>
<p>Here’s a video I show my students. While it’s from the UK, except for the emergency number, it’s correct:</p>
<p>[Vinnie</a> Jones’ hard and fast Hands-only CPR (funny short film) (full-length version) - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
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<p>People die all the time at my parents’ AL too, which is hardly surprising. They are really really old, and a lot of them have serious health problems. But they’re not quite sick enough to be in skilled nursing. All of these places require the residents to wear call buttons, but if a resident won’t use it, there’s not much they can do.</p>
<p>And you’re right, residents can live for an amazingly long time in IL/AL. IMO that’s evidence that these places do in fact take good care of their residents. I shudder to think what would be happening if my parents were still living in their home. In fact, I doubt very much that my father would still be alive. AL has saved their lives multiple times – by quickly calling 911.</p>
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<p>I believe this is what most people on this thread who refer to the person’s age are talking about. I don’t believe they are saying that an elderly person’s life is not worth saving, I believe they are referring to the fact that an elderly person whose heart has suddenly stopped beating has almost zero chance of being saved regardless of what measures are taken. Even among those who are resuscitated out in the field, the percentage of them who survive their hospital stay is tiny.</p>
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<p>I haven’t seen that video, but I’ve heard that song! When I do my re-certification (just did in February) that’s part of our practical portion. And the instructor cranks it up loud!</p>
<p>Thank you, nrds.</p>
<p>nj2011, when S2 went through CPR training, it was the compressions plus breaths. When we sponsored CPR training at our synagogue this summer, they were teaching compressions only. </p>
<p>S2 said <em>he</em> was sore for days after doing my CPR!</p>
<p>The survival rate for someone who has a full cardiac arrest outside of a hospital is on the order of 10%. The patient in the article was not likely to have a good outcome no matter what was done, but I have a hard time with doing nothing (and not letting anyone else help, either).</p>