In a major change, the American Heart Association said that hands-only CPR - rapid, deep presses on the victim's chest until help arrives - works just as well as standard CPR for most adults.  Read more here...

“You only have to do two things. Call 911 and push hard and fast on the middle of the person’s chest,” said Dr. Michael Sayre, an emergency medicine professor at Ohio State University who headed the committee that made the recommendation.

Hands-only CPR calls for uninterrupted chest presses — 100 a minute — until paramedics take over or an automated external defibrillator is available to restore a normal heart rhythm.

This action should be taken only for adults who unexpectedly collapse, stop breathing and are unresponsive. The odds are that the person is having cardiac arrest — the heart suddenly stops — which can occur after a heart attack or be caused by other heart problems. In such a case, the victim still has ample air in the lungs and blood and compressions keep blood flowing to the brain, heart and other organs.

A child who collapses is more likely to primarily have breathing problems — and in that case, mouth-to-mouth breathing should be used. That also applies to adults who suffer lack of oxygen from a near-drowning, drug overdose, or carbon monoxide poisoning. In these cases, people need mouth-to-mouth to get air into their lungs and bloodstream.

But in either case, “Something is better than nothing,” Sayre said.  The CPR guidelines had been inching toward compression-only. The last update, in 2005, put more emphasis on chest pushes by alternating 30 presses with two quick breaths; those “unable or unwilling” to do the breaths could do presses alone.

Now the heart association has given equal standing to hands-only CPR. Those who have been trained in traditional cardiopulmonary resuscitation can still opt to use it.

For the full article click here...   

Approximately every six weeks Jon Lewis of Industrial Strength London, organises a get together of some of the brightest minds in strength & conditioning for an early morning training session.  If you'ld like to become involved (and you should - the sessions are not only excellent, but they're free!) log on to Jon's site and hopefully I'll see you at the next session.

A recent report lets us know about a new German study that shows that acupuncture can help relieve menstrual pain and improve the quality of life for some women:

Because the acupuncture patients were compared with a control group who received no therapy, rather than a “sham,” or fake, version of the treatment, the placebo effect could have played a role, Dr. Claudia M. Witt of Charite University Medical Center in Berlin and her colleagues acknowledge.

“Nevertheless, our study showed that acupuncture was beneficial for women if offered as part of the health insurance system,” the researchers write in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, are standard treatment for menstrual pain, but they carry the risk of side effects, Witt and her team note in their report. Acupuncture and acupressure have been found helpful in treating other types of pain, so the researchers tested whether acupuncture delivered by doctors — as it typically is in Germany — would help with dysmenorrhea.

Since 2000, the researchers note, the nation’s health insurers have recommended that acupuncture to relieve pain only be covered by insurance if it is delivered as part of a study to investigate its effectiveness.

The researchers enrolled 201 women who agreed to be randomly assigned to acupuncture or no treatment.

After three months of treatment, which included an average of about 10 sessions, the average pain score was 3.1 in the acupuncture group, compared with 5.4 in the control group, using a pain scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst pain.

Among women given acupuncture, 63.4 percent reported at least a 33 percent improvement in their symptoms, while 24 percent of women in the control group did.

Based on these findings, the researchers conclude that ”acupuncture should be considered as a viable option in the management of these patients.”

Some of you may remember the negative press acupuncture received a couple of months back regarding its use in IVF support.  Just last week however a large scale review of clinical trials in this area in fact revealed that acupuncture can aid impregnation in IVF by up to 65%.  Have a look at this article published by The Guardian newspaper to see more on this exciting development.

Acupuncture may help increase IVF success rates by 65%
Sarah Boseley, health editor, The Guardian, Friday February 8 2008
 
Acupuncture can increase the chances of getting pregnant for women undergoing fertility treatment by 65%, a review of the evidence concludes today.

Acupuncture, which involves inserting fine needles under the skin at particular points in the body depending on the condition being treated, has long been used in China to help with a range of diagnoses, including regulating female reproduction.

To establish how effective the treatment is, doctors in the US collated evidence from all relevant, well-conducted studies and published their conclusions in today's British Medical Journal.

Eric Manheimer, research associate at the centre for integrative medicine at the University of Maryland school of medicine and colleagues looked at seven studies. All had been published in English since 2002 and conducted in four different western countries. The trials involved 1,366 women undergoing in vitro fertility treatment - where eggs and sperm are removed and mixed in the laboratory and one or more resulting embryos returned to the womb.

In the trials some women were given genuine acupuncture, others "sham" acupuncture, such as putting needles in the wrong places, and some no treatment at all. Overall the genuine acupuncture improved a woman's chances of pregnancy by 65%. All the acupuncture took place within a day or so of embryo transfer. Not all the pregnancies would have resulted in a live birth. In trials where the clinic's pregnancy rate was already high, there was a smaller, non-significant increase. Manheimer said the results were not necessarily a reason for every infertile woman to seek out acupuncture.

"I think the findings should be regarded as somewhat preliminary," he said. "Acupuncture can improve the rates of pregnancy and live birth. Some couples might want to choose acupuncture but others might want to wait until further research has been done."

But Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at the Peninsula medical school, Exeter, urged caution. "IVF may not seem to be 'placebo-prone' but it probably is: if women expect it to be helpful they are more relaxed, which in turn would affect pregnancy rates.

Manheimer argued a placebo response was unlikely, arguing that acupuncture may stimulate the body to produce neurotransmitters which influence the menstrual cycle, ovulation and fertility. 

One of the great difficulties of training internal martial arts is transferring the information learned through form (or movement) practise and bringing it into the context of real world self-protection.  Very often internal martial movements are practised at slow to medium speed with no contact against an opponent.  When a moment of confrontation does arise in real life, the situation is often a rude awakening for the practitioner.  Internal martial arts have of course many strategies to make their form work real, but these practises are often ignored in western classes due to the perception that the arts practised are purely for health and not self preservation.  The internal arts of course evolved from the battlefield traditions of ancient China and are eminently suitable to conflict.  Have a look at Master George Xu below take well known movements from the internal arts and ably demonstrate their practical usage in a defence scenario.

On July 23, 2007, CNN and YouTube partnered to sponsor the first Democratic primary debate of the 2008 election cycle. Questions regarding healthcare were asked by citizens from around the country by uploading personal videos to the YouTube website.  Have a look and see who you would vote for...

Industrial Strength London is a collective of diverse trainers that deliver heavy-duty strength and conditioning ideas, concepts and programmes to help its clients excel in their chosen pursuits.  It has been active in London since 2001 and every 6 weeks the individuals involved get together for an open-to-all training session.  What makes these sessions unique (apart from the fact that they have been run free since their inception) is that the agenda for the day is often created on the spot, drawing form the enthusiasm and knowledge of the individuals present.  With world class athletes and coaches in the ranks this always makes for an interesting mix.  The sessions themselves are organised by Jon Lewis of Balance Physiotherapy, Clapham.  Jon has an impeccable background in functional application of strength, conditioning and athleticism in real-world settings.  This Saturday past myself, Jon and CJ Swaby got to work on a session of Jon's devising.  Just over an hour in and what you have left is in the photo above!  The workout was a real revelation, featuring a dizzying array of movement patterns, many of which were new to me.  If you would like a look at what we did, have a look at Jon's Blog.  More importantly, if you want to join us for the next session (set for March 9th) get in touch with Jon at his site below.

Jon Lewis can be contacted at Industrial Strength London...
CJ Swaby can be contacted at CJS Fitness...