Mainichi Daily News
Copyright 2007 The Mainichi Newspapers
TOKYO — Cardiac arrest patients who are treated with an automated external defibrillator (AED) by ordinary citizens before paramedics arrive are seven times more likely to be resuscitated compared with those who don’t receive any on-the-spot treatment, a survey by the Tokyo Fire Department has found.
The use of AEDs has spread rapidly since the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare decided in July 2004 to allow ordinary residents to use them. The fire department says its survey, conducted last year, is the first to back up the effectiveness of AEDs with data.
AEDs are portable devices that use an electronic shock to resuscitate people whose hearts have stopped. In the past only doctors and paramedics were permitted to use them, but the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare later decided to permit ordinary citizens to use them based on advice from medical workers.
Tokyo Fire Department officials said that last year 3,107 people fell unconscious in front of regular citizens in incidents under the department’s jurisdiction. Of these people, 41 received AED treatment from other people in the area, and 17 of the people who received such treatment were resuscitated before arriving at the hospital -- a revival rate of 41.5 percent.
However, only 141 of the 2,193 people who did not undergo cardiopulmonary resuscitation were resuscitated, leaving the revival rate at 6.4 percent, a figure seven times lower than that of people who received AED treatment.
Residents attempted to resuscitate another 873 patients without the use of an AED, but the revival rate in these cases stood at about 10 percent.
Between the first six months of this year 38 people were treated with AEDs by regular citizens and 17, or 44.7 percent survived.
In one case a man in his 60s collapsed on a train in May. When the train arrived at the next station, a teacher, nurse and others on board used an AED to resuscitate him and were successful. In another case in March in which a man in his 50s caused a traffic accident, a doctor in a car behind him performed heart massage on him, and an employee of a nearby hotel brought along an AED, which was used to revive him.
“In many cases the people who actually use AEDs are doctors or medical workers who happen to be at the scene, and a future issue is having use of the devices filter down to ordinary residents.”
Use of AEDs has spread at public facilities, especially at stations and airports, with 3,500 of the devices installed in locations under the Tokyo Fire Department’s jurisdiction as of January this year. Nationwide, about 70,000 of the devices have been installed. Local fire stations and the Japanese Red Cross Society hold training sessions showing people how to use the devices.