New Guidelines Released For CPR On Pets
URBANA, Ill. (CBS) -- CPR is going to the dogs.
As WBBM Newsradio's Michele Fiore reports, while dogs and cats do not suffer heart attacks the way people do, researchers have come up with a set of recommendations on how to revive loved pets if their heart stops.
Until now, there were no real guidelines for reviving pets in cardiac arrest.
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"It was just, `This is what we think you should do,"' says Dr. Maureen McMichael, head of emergency medicine at the University of Illinois Veterinary Teaching Hospital.
But the University of Illinois veterinary teaching hospital has now come up with a set of pet-centered CPR guidelines.
With the animal lying on its side, compressions are to be done at a rate of 100 to 120 chest compressions per minute.
Breathing in a dog or cat is done through a tube and, under the new guidelines, at a slower rate than has been done in veterinary practice.
The new guidelines also call for how to do CPR on dogs of different breeds and sizes, how to train clinicians and which drugs to administer.
McMichael said some studies involving CPR and people were applicable in this research, because dogs and cats are often used to see what will work on people.
The recommendations were published June 7 in Journal of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care.
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