COURTESY OF AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION
A family practices at home with "CPR Anytime for Family and Friends," a portable CPR kit containing a "MiniAnne" mannequin. Kits can be purchased for less than $30 by visiting cpranytime.org or by calling 877-AHA-4CPR.
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Kits allow for CPR training at home
The American Heart Association hopes they will help save lives
Residents interested in learning cardiopulmonary resuscitation can do it now in about 20 minutes with a kit in their home.
The quick CPR lesson could help to save lives of loved ones.
The national cardiac arrest survival rate is only "a dismal" 5 percent or less, and about 75-80 percent of sudden cardiac arrests occur at home, says the American Heart Association.
The "CPR Anytime for Family and Friends" kits were created to encourage people to learn CPR in the convenience of their home and include the entire family.
They may be purchased for less than $30 by visiting cpranytime.org or by calling 877-AHA-4CPR.
Honolulu was one of 12 sites chosen by the AHA to preview the kits in August.
The association distributed 500 free kits under a grant from the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation for the training program.
Don Weisman, AHA spokesman in Hawaii, said the association had twice as many requests for the program, called CPR Ohana, than it could accommodate.
It is hoped residents will take advantage of the kits, available now with a CPR mannequin for practice, 22-minute DVD and resource booklet, he said.
The AHA goal is to double the number of people trained to do CPR in the next couple of years.
Weisman said adjustments have been made to the kit based on comments at the preview event here and in other communities.
The "MiniAnne" mannequin, an inflatable version of the traditional CPR mannequin, was designed exclusively for the kit.
The instructional DVD takes people through each step of training, from inflating the mannequin to doing chest compressions and rescue breathing.
The CPR Anytime for Family and Friends home kit is convenient for people who have no time to go to a CPR course or are too embarrassed or are not motivated, Weisman said.
It is useful for people who do not need to satisfy a work requirement, and most likely would not attend a traditional CPR course.
Laerdal Medical Corp. created the "MiniAnne" mannequin to simulate a human accurately, from resistance of the chest during compression to the amount of air necessary to make the chest rise and fall.
When users hear a click, they will know they pressed the chest hard enough, similar to mannequins used in traditional courses.
More than 335,000 people die annually in the United States from coronary heart disease before reaching a hospital or emergency room, the AHA points out.
About 95 percent of sudden cardiac arrest victims outside a hospital setting die because CPR and defibrillation are not provided soon enough, it said.
Brain death begins to occur four to six minutes after someone has cardiac arrest if CPR and defibrillation are not given within minutes.
"If more people performed effective CPR immediately after someone suffers cardiac arrest, thousands more lives could be saved," the AHA emphasizes.