Friday, Mar 29, 2024 | Last Update : 01:14 AM IST

  98 per cent Indians not trained in basic life-saving techniques

98 per cent Indians not trained in basic life-saving techniques

AGE CORRESPONDENT
Published : Sep 29, 2016, 1:26 am IST
Updated : Sep 29, 2016, 1:26 am IST

A survey released on the eve of ‘World heart Day” revealed that around 98 per cent Indians are not trained in basic life-saving technique of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) during sudden cardiac a

A survey released on the eve of ‘World heart Day” revealed that around 98 per cent Indians are not trained in basic life-saving technique of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) during sudden cardiac arrest. Significantly, the study revealed that six per cent of Delhiites knew about CPR.

The survey reveals that less than two per cent of the one lakh people surveyed agreed to having know the technique, while only 0.1 per cent said they have performed it on someone in case of an emergency. About 10 per cent of the people who were surveyed were from Delhi (60 per cent male and 40 per cent female). Out of that, six per cent of Delhiites knew about CPR. Gender wise break-up of those who knew about CPR in Delhi is male (6.6 per cent) and female (five per cent).

CPR is performed in eme-rgency conditions when heart stops beating. It is performed in the event of someone becoming unresponsive and its administration in the initial 5-6 minutes helps revive the heart and saves the brain from a permanent damage.

Even though people in metropolitan and Tier 1 cities are more proactive about their health, the knowledge of CPR is dismal even among them, with 95 per cent of the people claiming to have no knowledge about administration of the procedure.

“Indians are predisposed to heart conditions and even though cardiac-related conditions are taking a huge toll on human lives in the country, it is very sad that people are not aware about CPR or are trained to perform it,” said Saur-abh Arora, founder of Lybrate, in a statement.

Another study by Metropolis Healthcare found that over 50 per cent of 40,000 samples tested for cholesterol showed borderline high, or very high levels of non-HDL (high density lipoprotein) levels.

Metropolis’s data reveals that total cholesterol in the year 2011 was within desirable levels for 72.86 per cent of the samples, borderline high for 20.36 per cent of the population and high for 6.87 per cent of the population. For the year 2015, 67.77 per cent of the population was within desirable levels, 22.88 per cent of the population was borderline high and 9.35 per cent of the sample population was high.

Heart specialists, meanwhile, pointed that due to “smoking, stress, and sedentary lifestyle”, younger people are succumbing to heart diseases.

“Although most people believe that heart attack and sudden cardiac arrest are the same, these two are different entities though linked to each other by similar risk factors and causes,” said senior consultant cardiac electrophysiologist at Medanta, Dr Kartikeya Bhargava.

Location: India, Delhi, New Delhi