Centre for Policy on Ageing



Cardiopulmonary resuscitation in continuing care settings — time for a rethink?
Author(s)	Simon P Conroy, Tony Luxton, Robert Dingwall
Journal title	British Medical Journal, vol 332, no 7539, 25 February 2006
Pages	pp 479-482
Source	http://www.bmj.com
Keywords	Medical care ; Nursing homes ; Hospital services ; Coordination.
Annotation	Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is rarely successful in people who are old or frail, but current policy guidance fails to take this into account. Indeed, the potential benefits of CPR are not the same for everyone, and CPR will be unsuccessful with most people in care homes and community hospitals. Applying the guidelines could also mean that staff time and resources are being diverted away from core elements of care, so the cost of providing resuscitation to all requires scrutiny. When a treatment is unlikely to succeed, a presumption of intervention is inappropriate. The authors question whether it is ethically appropriate to require all institutions to provide resuscitation, and they call for the guidelines to be reviewed. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-060411203 A
Classmark	LK: LHB: LD: QAJ *
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.