CPR Glove could save lives, looks kind of dorky

A pair of electrical and biomedical engineering students at McMaster University are entering this year's Ontario Engineering Competition with a rather neat project: the CPR Glove. While it just looks like a particularly lame-looking and ill-fitting glove on the outside, the one-size-fits-all glove houses sensors that can measure if you're administering CPR compressions at the right rate and depth. Apparently the boys spotted a study that found compressions were applied at 80 per minute -- instead of the doctor recommended 100 -- 59% of the time, while 37% of compressions were too shallow. Not exactly the most exciting of statistics, but it inspired these guys to build a glove to help with training or even be included in standard first-aid kits. The glove is built with cheap handbuilt components, so it shouldn't be too hard to manufacture, and the guys are already planning to look for a manufacturer whether or not their creation wins the competition.

[Via Medgadget]

Read - Students develop CPR Glove
Read - Video of the glove in action

[reallycheep @ Feb 15th 2007 9:02AM]

This is kind of neat, but in terms of actual patient outcomes, I have my doubts whether it would really make any difference, and so I'm not sure the cost would be justfied. If you're in cardiac arrest and needing CPR, you're already in a pretty bad spot, and unless you can get defibrillated in a hurry, you're probably toast at that point. That said, if someone is pumping on your chest 80 times/minute instead of 100 times/minute, they're still moving blood through your heart, and you're still going to derive some benefit from your rescuer's ill-timed compressions. Maybe give you an extra 15 seconds before you're permanently brain-damaged or cardiac-infarcted.

[teodoro @ Feb 15th 2007 9:34AM]

Do you have any more knowledge than what you see on CSI/ER? Because it obviously doesn't seem that way. This glove is for training purposes. Yes, CPR saves lives, especially in situations withuout a defibrilator. My wife is a cardiac nurse and tools like this would really help in the class room to train drs and nurses.

[NeoteriX @ Feb 15th 2007 9:39AM]

I love the Cardiopulmonary resuscitation Glove. It's so bad.

[ts @ Feb 15th 2007 9:57AM]

I am sure good CPR (start quickly, proper depth, proper frequency, no interruptions) can make a difference, possibly as much as doubling survival. However, devices similar to this already exist, and they mesasure pressure and acceleration, to provide results similar to the glove. Journals such as Resuscitation mention them all the time. What is really bad I think is to show a photograph with two "experts" performing CPR on a hospital bed, pillow included, rather than on a hard surface. That is very bad, it does the opposite of what they are trying to achieve with the glove, and should never be done.

[andrew.basta @ Feb 15th 2007 10:33AM]

I don't think that glove is gonna help that guy on the bed. Looks like he's in rough shape.

[Sean @ Feb 15th 2007 10:57AM]

CPR isn't for saving someone from cardiac arrest. No matter the situation, CPR is meant to keep oxygenated blood flowing through the body until help arrives.

[ts @ Feb 15th 2007 11:04AM]

> CPR isn't for saving someone from cardiac arrest.

As part of the chain of survival, which includes calling 911 and getting additional help, of course it is. Every part of the chain is essential for saving someone. And good CPR vs. bad CPR or no CPR can make the difference between survival and non-survival. A well-oxygenated heart (via CPR) maintains a rhythm that can be shocked effectively for much longer. Even adrenaline has been shown to work work better within the context of good CPR.

[Eric @ Feb 15th 2007 11:14AM]

@reallycheep, please don't post when you don't know all the facts about what you type. As said before, CPR is meant to keep oxygenated blood flowing through the body until help arrives.

[Craig @ Feb 15th 2007 11:49AM]

@Eric, perhaps if you had really read and understood my post you wouldn't be so quick to jump on me. Typical survival rates for cardiac arrest in the prehospital setting are 1-2%. So even if you can double that with early CPR and rapid defibrillation, the odds are overwhelmingly against your surviving should your heart stop beating. That was my main point. If you're in a situation where somebody is pumping on your chest, whether they're doing so 80 times a minute or 100, you're probably done. And I don't think there's any hard data to prove that 100 compressions improves overall survival rates in humans compared to 80 compressions. I'm not a cardiologist, but I am a doctor and certified in Advanced Cardiac Life Support, and I think I have a pretty good grasp of the concepts involved.

[ts @ Feb 15th 2007 9:35PM]

> Typical survival rates for cardiac arrest
> in the prehospital setting are 1-2%.

That seems to be either a rural area, and/or a region with a lot of potential for this glove. I am not living in a Las Vegas Casino, where survival is said to be 30+%, but where I live the statistic is in the 7-15% range that seems to be common both in the US and in Europe, and where I like to believe that the difference between 7 and 15 is also due to the best possible CPR before and after arrival of EMS.

> And I don't think there's any hard data to prove
> that 100 compressions improves overall survival
> rates in humans compared to 80 compressions.

I beg to differ. For example:

Abella BS, Alvarado JP, Myklebust H, et al. Quality of cardiopulmonary resuscitation during in-hospital cardiac arrest. JAMA 2005;293:305—10.

Abella BS, Sandbo N, Vassilatos P, et al. Chest compression rates during cardiopulmonary resuscitation are suboptimal: a prospective study during in-hospital cardiac arrest. Circulation 2005;111:428—34.

W ik L, Kramer-Johansen J, Myklebust H, et al. Quality of cardiopulmonary resuscitation during out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. JAMA 2005;293:299—304.

K o PC, Chen WJ, Lin CH, Ma MH, Lin FY. Evaluating the quality of prehospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation by reviewing automated external defibrillator records and survival for out-of-hospital witnessed arrests. Resuscitation 2005;64:163—9.

Maier GW, Tyson Jr GS, Olsen CO, et al. The physiology of external cardiac massage: high-impulse cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Circulation 1984;70:86—101.

Feneley MP, Maier GW, Kern KB, et al. Influence of compression rate on initial success of resuscitation and 24 hour survival after prolonged manual cardiopulmonary resuscitation in dogs. Circulation 1988;77:240—50.

Swenson RD, Weaver WD, Niskanen RA, Martin J, Dahlberg S.Hemodynamics in humans during conventional and experimental methods of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Circulation 1988;78:630—9.

[Mike @ Feb 15th 2007 11:56AM]

Look, it's the "Risen Mitten!"

(Sorry, you have to watch BBC's Torchwood Series to understand that.) :-)

[PreGHz @ Feb 15th 2007 4:35PM]

I'll take the glove, minus the makeout sessions without Polo and Button-down, thank you very much.

[wayne @ Feb 15th 2007 4:40PM]

A small note on this: these guys already competed at the Ontario Engineering Competition and they won in their category. Now they'll be showing their stuff again at the Canadian Engineering Competition next month.

[Rainier @ Feb 15th 2007 5:22PM]

I liked it better when it was called the Nintendo Power Glove.

[ts @ Feb 15th 2007 9:51PM]

More in general, I think the glove is not that new or good, for the following reasons:

- Most training manikins can already measure this data from sensors inside the manikin, which are more direct to implement, simpler, cleaner and cheaper than an external glove. (Personally I believe that a good instructor is the best aid though, but that's another story.)

- A glove is something quite "personal". Would you put your hand in the same glove already used by 10 other people, some of them tense and sweating, in the same training session?

- During real CPR (no training) at least two rescuers should alternate every two minutes, so you need two gloves (no interruptions). That's already more expensive than one glove. Furthermore, accelerometer-based devices already exist that do the same, and they are placed between the chest and the hand, without needing a glove. Additionally, CPR quality can also be assessed via ECG alone, which is something the AED can do. Sure, real time ECG+accelerometer analysis is better, but it exists already.

[Mark @ Feb 16th 2007 5:59AM]

Unfortunately, ECG rhythm alone does not correlate with effective CPR. Sure, the ECG waveform changes with compressions, but it is not a good indicator of actual blood flow and computer models trying to predict bloodflow by ECG alone is not in any products today. Devices on the market today (including the new Zoll E,R and AED Plus/Pro Series, in addition to the Phillips Heartstart Mrx Q-CPR) all rely on an accelerometer to determine if the chest is being compressed deep enough.