As we spoke about last week, there is a lot of information to remember when learning First Aid. So, to make it a little easier acronyms are used for some processes. We will be looking at two of those today, they are DRABCD and CPR.

Recovery Position When a patient is unconscious they lose their protection reflexes that maintain an open airway…these are the coughing and swallowing reflexes. Because of this they are put into the recovery position.

Recovery Position continued… To place a patient into the recovery position 1.Kneel beside patient 2.Place arm closest to you across the patient’s chest 3.Bend the leg closest to you so knee is pointing up 4.Place arm furthest away from you straight out from the body 5.Use the bent knee as a lever, and support the head and neck, roll the patient onto their side away from you until the bent knee hits the ground.

DRABCD DRABCD is the primary assessment performed by the first aider to the patient. Primary assessment means that it is the first thing that the first aider completes to check the situation of the patient.

DRABCD continued… D = Danger R = Response A = Airway B = Breathing C = Compression or CPR D = Defibrillator

The first step when arriving on the scene as a first aider is to assess the dangers. Assessing the dangers does not just mean checking the danger for the patient there are actually two other groups of people that you should assess the dangers for first… Firstly you need to check the dangers for yourself, and secondly, you need to check the dangers for bystanders as you don’t want more casualties.

Checking for dangers does not simply mean looking around for obvious signs, for example seeing flames or oncoming traffic. You also need to listen and smell for dangers. Listening could alert you to something leaking or the sounds of an animal, ie a snake, and smelling will alert you to leaking gas or petrol etc.

Checking for the response of a casualty will allow us to establish the casualty’s conscious state. A common method for checking for a response is the “Talk and touch” or “Shout and shake”. This means first see if the casualty responds to questions, ask them what is your name, what happened? Or anything else to see if they respond. If they don’t respond verbally, then see if they respond to a gentle shake of their shoulders. If there is no response to a verbal command or movement, the casualty is unconscious.

The main aim of checking the airway is to ensure that there is nothing lodged that can prevent the casualty from breathing. The first step is to check the airway by opening the mouth and look for any objects in the mouth. These objects could include food, blood, vomit, teeth or tongue.

Open and look, are there objects lodged? Yes Put patient into recover position Scoop out anything in mouth Tilt head back No Leave patient laying how they are Tilt head back

While maintaining an open airway by tilting head back and opening mouth you need to ensure that the casualty is breathing. This is done through look, listen and feel. LOOK: and see if the chest is rising and falling LISTEN: near the nose and mouth to hear breathing FEEL: by putting hands on or near chest to feel rise and fall when breathing

When checking for breathing you should check for 10 seconds. This is because the normal breath rate is 3-4 breaths every 1 seconds. One gasp does not mean they are breathing regularly, it actually means that the person is close to death. If breathing put casualty into recovery position, if not already and call 000. If not breathing, begin CPR

If a person is not breathing and CPR begins after longer than 3 minutes, brain damage will begin to occur. This brain damage occurs at around 5-10% per minute. It is for this reason that it is important to begin CPR as soon as you establish the casualty is not breathing and call 000 after performing CPR for a couple of minutes.

Performing CPR… 1.Tilt head, block nose and open mouth 2.Perform 2 rescue breaths 3.Locate the centre of the chest 4.Perform 30 compressions 5.Tilt head, block nose and open mouth 6.Perform to full breaths 7.Start at step 3 again and keep going

ADULTCHILDINFANT CPR RATES30:2 LOCATION OF COMPRESSION Centre of chest HOW MANY HANDS/FINGERS 2 hands1 or 2 hands2 fingers DEPTH OF COMPRESSION 1/3 the depth of chest

A defibrillator is an electrical machine that delivers an electric shock to the heart to stop it beating and try and put it back into normal rhythm. If trained to do so, the next step in DR ABCD is to ask if a defibrillator is available and use it.

Today’s Tasks Complete accompanying “DRABCD and CPR” worksheet from your workbook. Practice DRABCD and CPR