Developing a device to help make CPR more effective in babies and children

Development of a system to characterize and provide feedback on closed chest compressions for cardiopulmonary resuscitation on paediatric wards

Professor Peters and his team want to develop new devices that help doctors and nurses deliver more effective cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, to babies and children. When the heart stops in cardiac arrest, the brain is starved of oxygen, often causing severe brain damage, and people can die within minutes. Prompt chest compressions, when someone presses on the front of the chest, are a key element of life support and increase the chance of someone surviving. But it is difficult to tell how hard to press on the chest, particularly in babies and children. In this project, Professor Peters wants to develop a new system which measures and gives feedback on chest compressions during resuscitation in children. Engineers, clinicians and academics will work together to develop a device which sits directly under the rescuers’ hands, and that measures the loads applied to children during CPR. Very few people who suffer cardiac arrest out of hospital survive. A simple device that can be used in hospitals and in public places, which tells people when they are doing chest compressions correctly in young people, could help save many lives.