PRESTAN Products Provides a Solution to Help Close an Important Gap in Bystander CPR

Women are less likely to receive CPR from a bystander, according to data gathered by the American Heart Association¹.

In fact, that same data shows that women receive CPR just 39% of the time, compared to 45% of the time for men.

Why such a gap in bystander CPR rates for those who identify as female? Often, rescuers are:

• Afraid to injure the person
• Afraid of being accused of sexual assault or misconduct
• Operate with the misconception that women don’t suffer cardiac arrest

This uncertainty can lead to precious time lost when every second counts.

“We want to acknowledge this important gap, create conversation between CPR training instructors and students, and reduce the barriers that put women’s lives in greater peril in a cardiac incident, as published research shows,” says Eric Moon, Director of Product Management, PRESTAN.

Visit the PRESTAN Products website to learn more and see additional data from the American Heart Association on disparities in effectively delivering CPR to women.

^1: Why People Fear Performing CPR On Women — And What To Do About It

About PRESTAN®

PRESTAN Products, LLC builds confidence in CPR/AED instructors and their students by offering a full range of intuitive, durable, cost-effective CPR Training Manikins, AED Trainers and Accessories. Founded in 2004 with a mission to save lives, PRESTAN quickly grew to become a leading innovator of CPR/AED training equipment and supplies with customers in over 40 countries. Build confidence in your students to perform high-quality CPR in lifesaving moments by visiting www.prestanproducts.com.

PRESTAN Aims to Improve Cardiac Arrest Survival Rates for Women With the New PRESTAN Female Accessory™ for CPR Training Manikins

CLEVELAND–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Women are less likely to receive CPR from a bystander and PRESTAN Products, LLC wants to change that by arming CPR training instructors with the right tools that allow them to build confidence in their students to act. With the launch of the new PRESTAN Female Accessory, PRESTAN gets to the heart of the matter by addressing the fears that can define a lifesaving situation.

American Heart Association (AHA) data shows women who suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in a public setting are 23% less likely to survive than men, but why?¹ In these critical moments, women receive CPR just 39% of the time compared to 45% for men. Often rescuers are:

• Afraid to injure the women.
• Afraid to be accused of sexual assault or misconduct.
• Operating with the misconception that women don’t suffer cardiac arrest (in fact, heart disease is the leading killer of women in the United States²).
• Reluctant to touch women in any way that might be deemed inappropriate.

“People have trained on flat-chested manikins for years but hesitate in an emergency involving women,” says Eric Moon, Director of Product Management for PRESTAN. “Suddenly there are questions about where is it appropriate to place my hands, or should I expose a women’s chest? This leads to inaction when every second counts. We want to acknowledge these very real concerns, create conversation between CPR training instructors and students, and eliminate the barriers that put women’s lives in greater peril in a cardiac incident as statistics show.”

Building Confidence

With the PRESTAN Female Accessory exclusive to PRESTAN manikins, instructors can focus their attention on preparing students to act fast in an emergency. The patent-pending PRESTAN Female Accessory easily attaches to PRESTAN Professional Adult, Professional Adult Series 2000 and Ultralite® CPR training manikins and mimics the female anatomy, giving instructors a better way to build confidence in their students by creating a comfort level that hasn’t been easy to achieve in classrooms until now.

Available in dark and medium skin tones, the PRESTAN Female Accessory ships in packs of four, is hand washable, and fully complies with current industry guidelines, including the most recent AHA Integrated Feedback Directive.

“There is a clear need in the basic life support space for female-oriented training manikins and now we’re bridging that gap,” Moon says. “What’s interesting is the very first CPR manikin was dubbed ‘Anne’ but was flat chested like nearly all iterations that followed. We are excited to move the market forward so that women are more likely to receive prompt CPR from someone who has been prepared for a lifesaving moment.”

To learn more about the PRESTAN Female Accessory, CPR Training Manikins and AED Trainers, or find a PRESTAN authorized distributor near you, visit www.prestanproducts.com.

¹AHA; https://www.heart.org/en/news/2020/11/23/why-people-fear-performing-cpr-on-women-and-what-to-do-about-it
²Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/women.htm

About PRESTAN®

PRESTAN Products, LLC builds confidence in CPR/AED instructors and their students by offering a full range of intuitive, durable, cost-effective CPR Training Manikins, AED Trainers and Accessories. Founded in 2004 with a mission to save lives, PRESTAN quickly grew to become a leading innovator of CPR/AED training equipment and supplies with customers in over 40 countries. Build confidence in your students to perform high-quality CPR in lifesaving moments by visiting www.prestanproducts.com.

Contacts

Morgan Jupina
akhia communications
morgan.jupina@akhia.com
440.864.3381

Building Confidence with PRESTAN

2020 has been the most challenging year in which any of us can remember. The onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic coupled with the economic impact of the virus has led to a time that has stretched all of us in many ways.

The world-wide pandemic has touched every facet of our lives and our everyday routines. It has even affected those of us involved in the teaching and performing of CPR. In early spring of 2020, the European Resuscitation Council concluded the number of CPR classes dramatically decreased due to the pandemic. Also, there was a tendency for lay rescuers to be even more hesitant or decide not to perform CPR due to fears of becoming infected with COVID-19.

CPR training instructor and Director of Operations at CPR Baltimore, Mike Goldberg, experienced this firsthand when his CPR training services came to a screeching halt earlier this year. His trainings at public libraries, day care centers, public schools, and medical offices essentially stopped for several months. While job critical CPR training inquiries are slowly beginning to pick back up, Mike’s biggest concern is that “the lay person will no longer be seeking out CPR training on their own” resulting in less people knowing and being able to perform CPR when the need arises.

Unfortunately, with or without a pandemic, Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) happens without warning and in an instant. Within minutes, irreversible damage is possible. Time is of the essence. Every moment counts. Not knowing or second-guessing yourself and your ability to perform CPR compromises that precious time.

Instructors of CPR training need to teach technical skills, of course, but more importantly, they need to be equipped to instill confidence in their students to use those skills if the need arises. Teaching students to trust their learning and perform accurate CPR when needed is the ultimate objective of any CPR instructor.

Measuring performance and teaching perfect technique are subservient to building confidence. Without confidence, the skills remain unused and the measurements are worthless. Without confidence, the trained student will never perform CPR on the SCA victim. Without confidence all the time, knowledge and training are wasted which may result in someone losing a friend… a colleague… or loved one.

Both skills and confidence are achieved through training tools that give real-time, accessible, and understandable feedback directly to the student. Simple tools that do not have to be interpreted, but ones that intuitively tell the student that they are performing CPR correctly and that they retain and can repeat those skills once they walk out of the training classroom.

PRESTAN has been focused on instilling confidence in CPR instructors and their students since 2004 when they first entered the health and safety training market with the introduction of products that addressed the needs of both the instructor and the student in a typical BLS CPR training classroom. The PRESTAN manikin provides real-time feedback  for both students and instructors for efficient CPR skill training, a positive classroom experience and, most importantly, the confidence in students to perform CPR without hesitation if and when needed.

With the stress of the current times, fewer people seeking medical assistance, and less people willing to go to emergency rooms, the need to know and be ready to perform CPR becomes even more important. Training centers throughout the world are struggling to find ways to teach these classes. Some instructors are now offering virtual training, some are offering hybrid training (a combination of both on-line and in-person training) and some are resorting to smaller class sizes where physical distancing can be achieved.

The common thread in all training scenarios is that CPR instructors still need to focus on the ability to instil confidence in their students while emphasizing that performing CPR is vital and can be done safely and effectively. Tools used for training CPR, especially manikins and AED training devices, must provide the feedback necessary that builds confidence in students to allow them to provide the much-needed assistance necessary when there is a cardiac arrest situation that requires their assistance.

Several companies are on the forefront of providing these tools for instructors to aid them in this effort. To learn more about PRESTAN and their offering of such training tools, please visit www.prestanproducts.com.