Time delays and capability of elderly to activate speaker function for continuous telephone CPR

BACKGROUND: Telephone-CPR (T-CPR) can increase rate of bystander CPR as well as CPR quality. Instructions for T-CPR were developed when most callers used a land line. Telephones today are often wireless and can be brought to the patient. They often have speaker function which further allows the rescuer to receive instructions while performing CPR. We wanted to measure adult lay people’s ability to activate the speaker function on their own mobile phone. METHODS: Elderly lay people, previously trained in CPR, were contacted by telephone. Participants with speaker function experience were asked to activate this without further instructions, while participants with no experience were given instructions on how to activate it. Participants were divided in three groups; Group 1: Can activate the speaker function without instruction, Group 2: Can activate the speaker function with instruction, and Group 3: Unable to activate the speaker function. Time to activation for group 1 and 2 was compared using Mann-Whitney U-test. RESULTS: Seventy-two elderly lay people, mean age 68 ± 6 years participated in the study. Thirty-five (35)% of the participants were able to activate the speaker function without instructions, 29% with instructions and 36% were unable to activate the speaker function. The median time to activate the speaker function was 8s and 93s, with and without instructions, respectively (p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: One-third of the elderly could activate speaker function quickly, and two-third either used a long time or could not activate the function.