Training

Teaching Response Skills Will Save Lives!

Response skills will prepare trainees for what they're actually required to do when responding to a cardiac emergency. By incorporating behavioral science principles, cultural barriers regarding touching or undressing others and emotional barriers about death and performing in public can be overcome.

Compressing manikins in a classroom is a far cry from the emotionally daunting event of finding the collapsed body of a co-worker with whom you may have had a cup of coffee with that very morning. Few trainees are afraid to touch a manikin or remove its shirt. But that is not a realistic simulation of assessing a collapsed co-worker or removing his clothes in public, so the skills do not translate into response.

Training manikins don't breathe, their chests don't rise, they never have a pulse, and their skin color never changes. Therefore, trainees must be taught how to assess actual people -themselves and their classmates. It's also important that instructors utilize equipment most closely resembling the AED equipment the trainee will use, not generic black boxes. Creating visual clues and familiar audio prompts will create confidence during an emergency.

Coming soon: “Words Can Be Deceiving/Misleading!”