A beginner’s guide to cardiopulmonary
resuscitation for laryngectomees
Our first recommendation is simple – get
in touch with the National Association
of Laryngectomee Clubs (NALC) and
ask for one of their excellent guides to
emergency resuscitation. Make some
copies and pass them among your family
and friends. They’ll find it a refreshingly
straightforward guide to what to do, and
it will give them (and you) a big dose of
reassurance.
Many of us will have vague notions
about how to perform an emergency
cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Fans of
TV hospital dramas will certainly have
their own ideas, but the reality is quite
different. Best technique is continually
being updated in an effort to give cardiac
victims the very best chance of survival.
So the first thing we need to do is forget a
lot of what we think we know about CPR.
Because obviously larys don’t breathe
through their nose and mouth, we have
to resuscitate by breathing into their stoma.
The principle is otherwise the same.
Stoma to mouth resuscitation?
Now, let’s take a quick look at this from
another point of view. If you are a neck
breather, what can do you do to help
somebody in need of emergency CPR?
While it’s not actually possible to administer
stoma to mouth resuscitation, it’s reassuring
to know that a lary or trachie can still do
enough to help keep somebody alive. In
many cases, chest compression is sufficient
to pump blood to the brain – and you can
see how it should be done at http://youtu.
be/E5huVSebZpM
This is the kind of information that we
should all have at our disposal, whatever
our circumstances. So pass it on and let’s all
hope that it’s one of those things we know
how to do without ever actually having to
do!
?
If you cannot make voice calls,
you can now contact the 999
emergency services by SMS
text from your mobile phone.
16 THE VOICE | Autumn 2011