Does Age Affect Outcomes of Out-of-Hospital Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation?

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation on Television — Miracles and Misinformation

“…[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] Reported rates of long-term survival vary from 2 percent to 30 percent for cardiac arrests taking place outside a hospital and from 6.5 percent to 15 percent for arrests inside a hospital. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] We compared the rates of long-term and short-term success for the occurrences of CPR seen in the television programs with the respective rates derived from all relevant studies in the medical literature. To calculate the sample size necessary for the study to have an 80 percent power of detecting a 20 percent difference between the survival rates seen on television and those in the literature (with an alpha level of 0.05 in a two-sided t-test), we used the highest reported long-term survival rate in the literature, 30 percent.…”

“…[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] For average elderly patients, the rate of long-term survival after cardiac arrest outside a hospital is probably no better than 5 percent. For arrests due to trauma, the reported survival rates vary from 0 to 30 percent.…”

Maximal medical therapy and palliative care can work together: When are advanced care measures appropriate?

“…While CPR has shown this marginal but significant difference in outcomes of witnessed out‐of‐hospital cardiac arrest, patient with advanced life‐limiting or life threatening illness tend to have even worse outcomes even if cardiac arrest is witnessed. Survival of all cardiac arrest patients to discharge has been estimated at 3% to 14% if cardiac arrest occurs outside of the hospital and 10% to 20% for witnessed, in‐hospital cardiac arrest 9–12. However, a recent meta‐analysis of resuscitation for cancer patients estimates overall survival to discharge at 6.2%, and less when factoring in metastatic disease (5.6%), or ICU care at time of arrest (2.2%) 13…”

Jewish ethical guidelines for resuscitation and artificial nutrition and hydration of the dying elderly.

“…They cite earlier studies which show that between two per cent (in rural areas) and nine per cent (in urban centres) of patients aged 70 or older survive to hospital discharge after out-of-hospital cardiopulmonary arrest; their own research findings also confirm that 'rapid and efficient resuscitation from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest can extend the life of elderly patients, especially if ventricular fibrillation underlies the cardiac arrest' (23). Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee compared elderly and younger patients and concluded that 'even though elderly patients are more likely than younger patients to die during hospitalization, the hospital stay of the elderly is not longer, (they) do not have more residual neurologic impairments, and survival after hospital discharge is similar to that in younger patients' (21,24).…”