Basic Life Support Course Content

This course** aims to teach participants how to recognize cardiac and/or respiratory arrest, activate the emergency response system, perform high-quality chest compressions, provide appropriate ventilation, and use an Automatic External Defibrillator. Participants will develop their knowledge and skills to perform quality and effective cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

Goals

• To apply high quality CPR in adults, children and infants
• To provide effective ventilation by using a barrier device
• Learn to use an automated external defibrillator (AED)
• To perform CPR with one rescuer and multiple rescuers
• To learn teamwork in CPR with multiple rescuers
• To practice foreign body obstruction (chocking) interventions in adults, children and infants.

Sample BLS Course Agenda With Optional Lessons

12 students, 2 BLS Instructors; student-instructor ratio 6:1; student-manikin ratio 3:1; total time: approximately 4 hours and 15 minutes (with breaks)

8:05-8:35 Lesson 2: 1-Rescuer
Part 1: Adult Chains of Survival
Part 2: Scene Safety, Assessment, and Adult Compressions
Part 3: Pocket Mask
Part 4: 1-Rescuer Adult BLS

8:35-8:55 Lesson 3: AED and Bag-Mask Device
Part 1: AED
Part 2: Bag-Mask Device

8:55-9:04 Lesson 4: 2-Rescuer Adult BLS

9:04-9:14 Lesson 5: Special Considerations
Part 1: Mouth-to-Mouth Breaths
Part 2: Rescue Breathing
Part 3: Breaths With an Advanced Airway
Part 4: Opioid-Associated Life-Threatening Emergency
Part 5: Maternal Cardiac Arrest

9:14-9:40 Lesson 6: High-Performance Teams
Part 1: Team Dynamics
Part 2: High-Performance Teams
Part 3: High-Performance Teams Activity (Optional)

9:40-10:00 Lesson 6A: Local Protocols Discussion (Optional)

10:10-10:20 Lesson 7: Child BLS
Part 1: Pediatric Chains of Survival
Part 2: Child BLS
Part 3: 2-Rescuer Child CPR

10:20-10:40 Lesson 8: Infant BLS
Part 1: Infant BLS
Part 2: Infant Compressions
Part 3: Bag-Mask Device for Infants
Part 4: 2-Rescuer Infant CPR
Part 5: AED for Infants and Children Less Than 8 Years of Age

10:40-10:47 Lesson 9: Relief of Choking
Part 1: Adult and Child Choking
Part 2: Infant Choking

10:52-11:32 Lesson 11: Skills Test
Part 1: Adult CPR and AED Skills Test
Part 2: Infant CPR Skills Test

11:57-12:12 Lesson 13: Remediation
Part 1: Skills Testing Remediation
Part 2: Exam Remediation

The American Heart Association strongly promotes knowledge and proficiency in BLS, ACLS, and PALS and has developed instructional materials for this purpose. Use of these materials in an educational course does not represent course sponsorship by the American Heart Association, and any fees charged for such a course do not represent income to the Association.