Older people are the group most likely to need cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), but they are the least likely to have training in the life-saving technique, according to new findings.

“This mismatch may translate into lives lost, because if someone collapses at home who is 65 years old and their 62-year-old spouse does not know CPR, they have to wait for the ambulance to arrive and it may be too late,” said Dr. Benjamin S. Abella, who directs the Center for Resuscitation Science at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “We need to be more creative about our approach to CPR training in this population.”

Receiving prompt CPR from a bystander more than doubles a person’s chances of surviving a sudden cardiac arrest, but fewer than one-third of sudden cardiac arrest victims receive bystander CPR, Abella and his team noted in a report in the Journal of the American Heart Association. To better understand low rates of bystander CPR, Abella and his colleagues surveyed a nationally representative sample of about 9,000 U.S. adults on their CPR training status.

Just 18 percent had current training in CPR, while 65 percent said they had received training in the past. The older a study participant was, the less likely he or she was to have current CPR training, or to have ever received CPR training. People with a graduate school education or higher were more than three times as likely have current CPR training. However, lower education and lower household income were both associated with not having received CPR training.

Traditionally, people get certified to perform CPR by attending classes sponsored by the American Heart Association or the American Red Cross, often at universities, schools or hospitals. CPR certification is time-consuming, and can be expensive, Abella told Reuters Health in a telephone interview.

“There’s an important mantra in resuscitation, which is ‘something is better than nothing,’” he added. New ways to teach CPR, he suggested, might be through training offered by video at places where people are going to be waiting anyhow, like the department of motor vehicles, the airport, or the doctor’s office.

“Breaking outside of the classroom and the traditional model of CPR training is going to be important,” Abella said. “There are many locations where we can bring CPR to the public, as opposed to asking the public to come find ways to learn CPR.”

More information about CPR training in the U.S. or worldwide is available from the American Heart Association, here: bit.ly/19Wb4pT.

SOURCE: bit.ly/2qwWxu2 The Journal of the American Heart Association, online May 17, 2017.

First Aid Training Canberra. An interesting article on the benefits of not drinking for the wallet. But remember there are many benefits health wise also.

Kate Robertson

Published: May 30 2017 – 7:07AM

When I was forced to quit alcohol because of long-term medication, I was not very impressed.

Neither, honestly, was anyone else. Very few people were not surprised, uncomfortable, or occasionally argumentative – I definitely heard “just the one will be fine!” more than once. But I did not really have a choice.

After a few dry months, I realised there was a benefit I hadn’t considered – I had a lot more money.

I knew I would save calories when I stopped drinking, but I had not really thought about saving money. I regularly read (and ignore) advice to give up my $3.50 coffee, but cutting back on alcoholic beverages? Surely that’s just un-Australian?

I still went out, just not as often (or for as long). The people I saw the most were supportive about compromises, splitting the tab differently or requesting I bring desserts to dinner instead of wine. I felt more comfortable when I realised I could drink soda and lime in a short glass, and no one would know it didn’t contain vodka. Occasionally I’d buy a mocktail, which, sadly, is never the same.

Drinking is an expected part of life in Australia, and we consume a lot of it. The Bureau of Statistics estimates Australians drank more than 1.74 billion litres of beer and 543 million litres of wine in 2014. In 2012 Australians spent $14.1 billion on alcohol, meaning the average spend for a single person under 35 was $24 a week or $1248 a year. Given that’s averaged across the whole population and more than one in five people do not drink at all, it means the typical drinker is spending far more.

Let’s say in a typical week you buy two $15 bottles of wine for home, and spend $50 on Friday nights after work. If you go out for a meal, you might spend another $40 for a cocktail and half a bottle of wine. Every two months you have one big night out and spend $150. That’s $7140 in a year. Then think about how much that might skew for celebrations and holidays.

Natasha Janssens, founder of financial education business Women with Cents, says “when it comes to saving, most of us make the common mistake of looking for one big ticket item we are spending our money on.

“The reality for most, however, is that we underestimate how much all our little expenses add up.”

It is obviously easy to lose track of money spent on alcohol, especially with late nights or bar tabs. It is just as easy to forget about that one quick $8 beer after work, or picking up a $20 six-pack of cider on the way to a friend’s house. Janssens says it’s a common trap to try to make a mental note of spending but it doesn’t work, because people always under-estimate.

Personal wealth coach Lisa Barber estimates nine out of 10 clients don’t know their cost of living and where all their money goes, and says alcohol is a big part of that. Barber has advised a client who spent just over $2000 in a year on alcohol, as well as a couple who enjoyed premium wines and spent over $14,000 annually. She has found that tracking this spending “often leads to a change in their lifestyle choices”.

In one year of not drinking, I saved about $4000. This is not including the terrible food I used to order at the end of the night and the next morning to combat the hangover. It took me more than three months to realise why I had this leftover cash, so I really wasn’t tracking my spending very well. This made me more aware of my finances and a more active saver overall.

I might not have made the choice to stop drinking, but at least I know it’s an enforced saving plan.

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/content/adaptive/smh/money/saving/giving-up-drinking-saved-me-4000-a-year-20170528-gwez3y.html

First Aid Course Canberra. CPR Training. Nationally Recognised Certificate. Free first aid course manual and CPR face mask. Experienced Trainers.

The 25-metre “Heart Bus” he conceived, built and remortgaged the family home to help pay for, is proof of that.

But when the Queensland Government refused to support a funding proposal for his cardiology ‘clinic on wheels’ long-term — saying public programs were better value for money — it felt like a body blow.

“When Rolf was knocked back by the State Government, it was basically just a kick in the guts, really,” Gomes’ wife, Kylie, tells ABC’s Australian Story tonight.

“Rejection for some people is debilitating [but] for Rolf it has the opposite effect.”

Eighteen months into a pilot program he knew was saving lives, Dr Gomes kept looking for a way to keep his heart bus dream alive.

“It did take the wind out of my sails,” says Gomes.

“A big part of your vision has just been eliminated. But you never know what’s around the corner.”

Salvation came two days before Christmas, 2016, in the form of a million-dollar mystery donor with heart, keen to deliver on the dream of a dead man.

The family told him their late father loved the bush, and knew that at the heart of every bush community was the doctor.

“Their father had also wanted to try to get doctors to the bush, and spent years trying to create a program with the government, but hit brick walls,” Dr Gomes says.

He ran out of time, passing away before he could do it.

“They said ‘we’d like to support you, how does a million toward building the second clinic sound?’” Dr Gomes says.

“I said that sounded pretty good.”

“Not every day does someone offer you a million to build your dream. Like the phoenix … we’ve risen from the ashes.”

TELL HIM HE’S DREAMING

Dr Gomes came to Australia as a child, his parents bringing the family from Calcutta after the death of their oldest son.

“My dad stepped off a plane with $200, four suitcases and four children to come to a country so his kids could have a better life,” Dr Gomes tells Australian Story.

All his parents wanted was for Rolf to do well at school. He duly delivered.

He worked as an electrical engineer, realised he liked “people more than computers” and studied medicine.

A career in cardiology beckoned, and stints working in the bush during his residency saw him frustrated by the limitations and difficulties which meant he couldn’t do as much medically for country people as he could in the city.

When a man injured in a quad bike accident refused X-rays because “I just can’t travel”, Dr Gomes put him in a neck collar, sent him home, and wondered during the night “is this guy going to be able to move his legs in the morning?”

The first seeds of a plan to take specialist services to the bush were sewn.

“Heart disease is still the biggest killer,” he says.

“If you live in the bush away from the city centre you actually have a 44 percent greater chance of dying of heart disease.

“You can’t look at a situation like that and say the way to address that is to maintain the status quo.

“You do something like this because there has got to be a passion for doing something worthwhile. Giving something back to the country which had given me everything.”

Many admired the plan, the drive and the vision. Others told him he was dreaming.

He needed $1 million to set up the bus, another $1 million a year to run the program.

THE HEART BUS

The Heart Bus launched in 2014. By that time Dr Gomes had written countless letters, hit up everyone from the Federal Government down, secured some corporate supporters and sponsorships, and put his own “skin in the game”, remortgaging his family home to the tune of $800,000

“I was in a funny way unencumbered by wealth and reputation. For me the only way was up,” he says.

The bus is fitted with all the specialist equipment of a city practice, and covers 8000 kilometres of outback Queensland a month, visiting 12 regional towns.

In the first six months of operation, Dr Gomes sent nine people off for lifesaving open heart surgery.

It’s now seen about 3000 patients. The drive to Winton might take 15 hours. Patients will drive another couple of hours to meet it.

Ironically, the Queensland State Government which put a one-off $250,000 into the clinic, but won’t fund its expansion long-term.

The million-dollar mystery donation means a second mobile clinic will launch in 2018, with the plan to expand the specialist services beyond cardiology.

“The truth is the program is going to stay one way or another. It; ’s going to get bigger. It’s going to get more expansive, and it can’t be ignored,” Dr Gomes says.

“I do what I do because I really like doing it. I don’t know what people look to achieve in their lives, but if I achieve nothing else, this would perhaps be enough.”

Australian Story: The Beat Goes On airs Monday at 8pm on ABC and ABC iview