Basic life support
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Overview
Basic Life Support (BLS) is a specific level of prehospital medical care provided by trained responders, including emergency medical technicians, in the absence of advanced medical care.
Basic Life Support consists of a number of life-saving techniques focused on the "ABC"s of prehospital emergency care:
- Airway: the protection and maintenance of patient airway including the use of airway adjuncts such as an oral or nasal airway
- Breathing: the actual flow of air through respiration, natural or artificial respiration, often assisted by emergency oxygen
- Circulation: the movement of blood through the beating of the heart or the emergency measure of CPR
BLS may also include considerations of patient transport such as the protection of the cervical spine and avoiding additional injuries through splinting and immobilization.
BLS generally does not include the use of drugs or invasive skills, and can be contrasted with the provision of Advanced cardiac life support (ACLS). Most laypersons can master BLS skill after attending a short course. Firefighters and police officers are often required to be BLS certified. BLS is also immensely useful for many other professions, such as daycare providers, teachers and security personnel.
CPR provided in the field buys time for higher medical responders to arrive and provide ACLS. For this reason it is essential that any person starting CPR also obtains ACLS support by calling for help via radio using agency policies and procedures and/or using an appropriate emergency telephone number.
An important advance in providing BLS is the availability of the automated external defibrillator or AED, which can be used to deliver defibrillation. This improves survival outcomes in cardiac arrest cases, sometimes dramatically.
New BLS guidelines are published by the American Heart Association in December 2005 [4].
In other countries
The term BLS is also used in some non-English speaking countries (e.g. in Italy) for the education of first responders.
- Belgium: Aide médicale urgente ("emergency medical assistance")
- France]]: CFAPSE (certificat de formation aux activités des premiers secours en équipe, "education certificate for the team first responder activity")
- Germany]]: Erste Hilfe Schein (first aid certificate).
- Netherlands: EHBO (Eerste Hulp Bij Ongelukken, "first aid")
- Turkey: İlk Yardım Kursu
These courses do not include the use of drugs or of invasive techniques, but include the management of various traumas and casualty lifting and movement.
See also
- Advanced Life Support
- Emergency Medical Technician
- EMT Basic Skills
- Artificial respiration
- CPR
- Advanced cardiac life support
B.L.S. SIMULATOR
- BLS OnTheRoad [5] a multilanguage, interactive B.L.S. SIMULATOR, upgrade to Guide Lines IRC-2005, full version Freeware (4.81 Mb)
External links
- Single-Rescuer Adult Basic Life Support — An Advisory Statement From the Basic Life Support Working Group of the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation, Circulation #95, pp 2174–2179, ed. American Heart Association, 1997
- Nozioni primo soccorso BLS (Italian), PDF document (12p, 912 Kb)
Health Science > Medicine > Emergency medicine | |
|---|---|
| Procedures | Advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) · Advanced life support (ALS) · Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) · Basic life support (BLS) · Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) · First aid · Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) |
| Equipment | Ambulance · Bag valve mask (BVM) · Chest tube · Defibrillation (AED, ICD) · Electrocardiogram (ECG/EKG) · Intraosseous infusion (IO) · Intravenous therapy (IV) · Intubation · Nasopharyngeal airway (NPA) · Oropharyngeal airway (OPA) · Pocket mask |
| People | Certified first responder · Emergency medical technician (EMT) · Paramedic · Emergency physician |
| Drugs | Atropine · Amiodarone · Epinephrine/Adrenaline · Magnesium · Bicarbonate |
| Other | Golden hour · Emergency department · Emergency medical services · Emergency psychiatry · Medical emergency · Trauma center · Triage |
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Acknowledgement and Attribution Regarding Sources of Content
Some of the initial content on this page may be incorporated in part from copyleft sources in the public domain including wikis such as Wikipedia and AskDrWiki. Drug information for patients came from the The National Library of Medicine. Infectious disease information may have come from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Differential Diagnoses are drawn from clinicians as well as an amalgamation of 3 sources: 1.The Disease Database; 2. Kahan, Scott, Smith, Ellen G. In A Page: Signs and Symptoms. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, 2004:3; 3. Sailer, Christian, Wasner, Susanne. Differential Diagnosis Pocket. Hermosa Beach, CA: Borm Bruckmeir Publishing LLC, 2002:7 .
