Eli5: when giving CPR, wouldn’t the lungs be compressed and released, creating a vacuum and providing some oxygen? If so, how does brain hypoxia still occur?

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Eli5: when giving CPR, wouldn’t the lungs be compressed and released, creating a vacuum and providing some oxygen? If so, how does brain hypoxia still occur?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

CPR is intended to delay brain hypoxia as long as possible. But it is still not as good as when the person is breathing themselves. It is not just about getting air into the lungs but the oxygenated blood in the lungs needs to be pumped to the brain. The primary purpose of cheast compressions is to pump the heart manually in order to get some blood flow. The modern concensus taking into accunt all the studies on this subject is that the cheast compressions are by far the most important part of CPR and a lot of expects even suggest only to do cheast compressions. The reasons is as you say that there will be some airflow to the lungs when doing cheast compressions and this is enough to get oxygen to the brain. Even just the lungs and blood alone have enough oxygen to keep the brain alive until the ambulance arrives so even with the airways closed you could argue that cheast compressions will be more important then clearing the airways.

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