Big Changes in First Aid: The Newest AHA Guidelines

The 2024 updates to first aid guidelines are some of the most significant changes in years, and they’re designed to make emergency response simpler, faster, and more effective. In this episode, we’re breaking down the updates that matter most for everyday situations. Learn how Narcan is now officially recommended for opioid overdoses, why pulse oximeters have earned a spot in your first aid kit, and how to manage burns, dehydration, and asthma emergencies with the latest best practices.

We’ll also dive into new guidance on helping someone use an inhaler (even if they’re panicking) and when it’s safe to administer aspirin during a heart attack. Plus, we’re tackling one of the more unexpected topics: what to do with a tooth if it breaks or falls out. We've got some detailed guidance for you on this!

Whether you’re a safety professional or just want to be better prepared for life’s unexpected detours, this episode is packed with practical advice, expert insights, and life-saving tips you won’t want to miss.

Life Safety Associates specializes in emergency response training for corporate ERT Teams. We help businesses create competent and confident first responders who are ready to handle unexpected emergencies. For more information you find us @lifesafetyassoc or email@lifesafety.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 2024 First Aid Updates and Guidelines
• 14:21 Oral Rehydration for Dehydration

Transcript

Jimmy: 0:23

What's happening. It's your boy, jimmy, with another life and safety podcast, and of course, I got Megs with me. Today we're gonna be talking about the 2024 first aid updates that are gonna start getting taught in the fall. The cool thing about life safety is. One of the cool things about life safety is is that we kind of already been teaching a lot of this stuff. You know me and the other instructors. We're always out, you know, trying to.

Jimmy: 0:59

You know research things. If it's not social media, it's word of mouth or it's a class or it's something, and we're always trying to look for fresh stuff and what's going to happen and come down. You know what's coming down the pipe, like what's the military doing, what are ER doctors doing, things like that, and that stuff gets evaluated and tested before it gets rolled out to us general public folks. So these changes, they happen every year. There's updates, things like that. But the 2024 updates were some of the biggest ones and we're going to talk about those today. So let's talk about some of those at a high level, megs, because if we tell you, all of them.

Megan: 1:46

You're not going to want to come to class.

Jimmy: 1:48

It's also going to be exceedingly boring. It'll be exceedingly boring. So go ahead.

Megan: 1:53

High level. One of the big ones that I think is good, that's new and being taught, is going to be the opioid overdose and how to handle that. So use of Narcan, when to use Narcan, you know, is it a suspected opioid overdose, et cetera, et cetera.

Jimmy: 2:11

Yeah. So one of the things about this that I thought was interesting is they actually released it in 23. And they said, yeah, we should, it's okay to do this with this algorithm. And now they're like, yes, we should do this with this algorithm. And now they're like, yes, we should do this with this algorithm. Um, so that was one of the big takeaways when I saw that change. Uh, you know, obviously, if you've been through a life safety class within the last year maybe two years even you've heard us talk about this. So, um, stay tuned for more information on how to use Narcan and when to use that. But, in general, when in doubt, narcan out. I mean, if you have it and you think it's the best person to go for it, use it, even if you think there's a small chance. Yes, 100%, 100%, all right, 100%, 100%, alright. So another big one on this was pulse oximeters. The pulse oximeter has been around for a while.

Megan: 3:21

It's that little doohickey machine that you can stick on your finger. He's giving me a face. You know what? They can't see you go.

Jimmy: 3:30

It's the clam thing, it's the pincher thing that goes on your fingers. You probably had it on to the doctors. It tells you how much you know, it gives you your pulse, it gives you you know blood oxygen levels, things of that nature. It works really cool. It's an easy fix. Apparently I watched the seminar of the american art association, the red cross, putting these things out there, and this thing that I felt was really funny is they are putting this in there because of so many people bought pulse oximeters during covid to make sure they're breathing, okay if they're sick. Right, it makes sense. I understand, you know, especially in the beginning of COVID. So they're like, yeah, well, it's there, we should people have them. We should say it's okay to use them in first aid. Cool, yeah, um, it definitely makes things easier. You don't have to catch, take pulses or you know a blood pressure, so to speak. I mean, it's still nice to be able to take all those things, but it's nice to also just help the person breathing.

Megan: 4:38

Yeah, um, and they're, you know, really easy to use. All you gotta do is just stick it on a finger and wait for it to do its thing. There are obviously limitations, you know. If somebody has painted nails um or other, you know, underlying heart conditions that make it more difficult to read um, but it's definitely a really easy tool to use and it's helpful in a lot of cases yeah, yeah, yeah, um, not super great in, uh, a high elevation, oh right, just because thinner air. Makes sense makes sense.

Jimmy: 5:13

Another real cool one I thought was aspirin in heart attacks. It's now going to be okay to give aspirin if somebody thinks they're having a heart attack. So if I think somebody's having a heart attack I can just give them aspirin if they're not allergic to it them aspirin if they're not allergic to it, Whereas before you can only do it if it was suggested to you by doctors or 911 operators under their doctor's standing orders. I think that's really cool. Another medicine thing is inhalers.

Megan: 5:53

Yeah, inhalers for the use of asthma. They have been approved for us as bystanders to help give. In the past it used to be that the patient had to be the one to give it to themselves, but now it is recommended that providers should assist a patient if needed. And then it also talks about the use of the spacer, so a sort of tube-like thing to go in between the inhaler itself and the patient's mouth to help. Because there's a lot of timing that has to be involved in somebody using an inhaler. They have to press down while they're reeling in and then hold their breath, and sometimes, if you're panicking, it's hard to coordinate. All of that is my understanding. So, um, using a spacer helps. Uh, it aerosolizes the medication into that tube in between the inhaler and the mouth and the person can just breathe in it. Um, breathe in the air. That's already been the medication aerosolized in and it's easier for them. Yeah, did that make any sense?

Jimmy: 6:53

It, did it did. I got you. I was tracking. I was tracking so improvised. They actually showed this on the video in the seminar I watched. There's actually a picture of it in the new guidelines and they're using a water bottle as a um, something called spacer, spacer.

Jimmy: 7:16

Thank you, I was gonna call it a nebulizer and I was like that's not the right word close but no, um, the spacer and they literally cut a hole, a small hole at the um bottom of the cup or the bottle, excuse me and let the person inhale through the drinking part of it, and that was really cool. It was really cool and really interesting. Um, I've never been in a situation where I had to do that, so I thought it was really cool.

Megan: 7:45

Yeah, it's always neat I haven't seen it before. I've seen the non-improvised spacers for, like, children with asthma, sure, um, but I like never even considered doing an improvised one.

Jimmy: 7:55

So, yeah, fascinating it was really neat. It was really neat. So the two medicines is going to go along with, you know, an epi pen now that we can administer. That's a new thing. Um, we've definitely been teaching that a little while longer now, um, but yeah, I mean it's standard first aid to to be able to give those things and those are some good practical things that I'm glad that the american art association and red cross and a lot of other folks, all the governing bodies, came across and said, yeah, let's start doing this because it makes sense. It just makes sense, so that's really good. Um, what are some other big ones you got Meg?

Megan: 8:35

care of thermal burns after cooling big fancy words yeah.

Jimmy: 8:40

So this is like a first degree burn. This isn't a second or third degree burn. So if there's blisters or charring, definitely don't do what we're going to talk about right now, which is the big one. I'm going to let Megan say the big word that's in the guidelines and then we'll talk about it.

Megan: 8:58

This is reading from the book. After cooling for small partial thickness burns being managed at home, it may be reasonable to apply petrolatum or petrolatum-based antibiotic ointment, honey or aloe vera and a clean, non-adherent bandage to open burn wounds.

Jimmy: 9:16

Yeah, honey gets mentioned a couple times in these updates, which is kind of interesting. Yeah, and it's not for diabetes, it's not sugar, it's for teeth and burns which is interesting.

Jimmy: 9:32

Yeah, there's whole huge two papers you know four pages written and why honey works, and we're not going to read that to you. Um, use the google search bar, you'll figure it out. Butrelitum is basically vaseline petroleum products. Uh, years ago they actually said not to use petroleum products and burn gel stuff because it holds in heat. So I'm interesting. I have not read the study yet on why petroleum is back in the good graces, but it is, but it is, but it is. So I think that's a. It's always fascinating how things go back and forth To me as an inquisitive person who likes to ask lots of questions. So I'm going to definitely try to carve out some time here pretty soon and read that study, but it's not going to happen in the near future. And, uh, read that study, but it's not gonna happen in your future.

Megan: 10:38

Um, but the uh. The big overarching is that it is back it is back.

Jimmy: 10:43

Smart people said it is yeah smarter people than us said yes, you start putting patrol. You can put patrolatum, which is basically the base of yeah, yeah, vaseline, things like that on there, but always cool it off first.

Megan: 10:59

Cool it off that nice cold shower and then it's a summer, cold, running water, yeah, and then, once it's no longer hot, and there's no more heat to hold in petroleum Petroleum.

Jimmy: 11:10

Or burn gel or aloe vera or honey.

Megan: 11:14

Mm-hmm.

Jimmy: 11:15

I just find that, like I feel, I think it's gonna be so sticky and gross yeah, I would.

Megan: 11:20

I would stick with the burn gel if I could. I mean last ditch effort honey, but like I mean I've heard about healing properties of like manuka honey and like what's the difference between manuka honey and honey? Uh, fancy honey, it's more expensive more expensive. Fancy hunter prettier bee maybe I don't know what the difference is, but I've heard you know, tell of it and I didn't get that much credence because I was like, okay, yeah, sure, but you know, now it's in the aha guidelines, so I'm gonna check it out more for honey.

Jimmy: 11:52

Yeah, yeah, awesome, so interesting stuff. So all this stuff will be um in the new life safety first aid books and the classes. So if you have questions, definitely don't forget to ask those questions to your instructors. Um, what was the other big one? We talked about dental stuff right now. So if you break your tooth right or something happens to your tooth gets knocked out, it's actually recommended to rinse it off and put it back in. Yeah, as long as it doesn't do any damage to the gums and stuff like that.

Megan: 12:32

And don't rinse it off for too long, like less than 10 seconds, just to get visible debris off. But you don't want to rinse it so long that, like the skin and gum parts that are on it start to come off.

Megan: 12:41

So you're just like rinsing off visible dirt and sticking it right back in its spot. Dentists have been saying this for a while, but it's supposed to help with re-implantation and make it more likely to stick. The longer it's out of the mouth, the worse it is, and then they also give suggestions of what to put in it if you can't put it back in the person's mouth, tap water being the absolute worst solution.

Megan: 13:08

Don't put it in tap water, it's okay if you do, but it's the least desirable thing. First option well, first option is putting it back in the mouth, yeah. Second option is something called Hanks Balanced Salt Solution. I doubt that anyone's going to have that. So some other options are rice water or wrapping it in cling film, a propolis solution or oral rehydration salt solutions, but those are all big fancy things that I don't expect people to carry. But some second line options are cow's milk of any fat content, so anywhere from you know, 1% to whole milk, or the person's own saliva, and then, third line of defense, another person's saliva.

Megan: 13:50

So just you know, have a friend, spit into a bag or something for you spit in this cup for me put my tooth in it um a probiotic media, so like yogurt or something like that, um egg whites or even almond milk I don't think I read the almond milk.

Jimmy: 14:06

That's interesting. I can answer this, and I listened to the the seminar and that was pretty interesting. I'll say a little bit of that. Yeah, the yogurt, I thought was cool. Yeah, that makes sense, makes sense. Um well, what else do you got? Was there another medical one you wanted to talk about?

Megan: 14:29

Um, I mean one that I found interesting was the oral rehydration of exertional dehydration.

Megan: 14:36

So if you exercise so much that you get dehydrated. Um, we've been teaching for a while to have the person, if they are not so nauseous that they're going to be vomiting, to, to have them take sips of a liquid, preferably something with electrolytes. So salt in the water, not too much salt. But now it's officially in the AHA that it recommends it is reasonable to choose a 4% to 9% carbohydrate electrolyte drink over potable water, meaning you want to give them an electrolyte drink instead of just plain water, because that's going to be absorbed into the body a lot more successfully. You can also, if you don't have a 4% to 9% electrolyte, drink anywhere from 0% to 3.9% carbohydrate electrolyte drinks. Coconut water or even low-fat cow's milk is also a good option for rehydrating. That's going to be a little bit more successful than just plain water, and so I thought that that was cool.

Jimmy: 15:39

But you know, yeah, it's definitely cool. I think it's cool that they're saying drink Gatorade when you work out too hard.

Megan: 15:45

Pedialyte Pedialyte.

Jimmy: 15:50

Which people have been doing for years and years and years, but now it's in their first aid guideline. So you can't, you know, really go wrong suggesting it, so to speak. Um, obviously, if they're not throwing up, and things like that yeah, if they're.

Megan: 16:01

You know if giving them water is going to make them vomit more than that's just going to dehydrate them. So don't be forcing water down their throat.

Jimmy: 16:08

Yeah, for sure, for sure. So that's it for another Life and Safety podcast. Be on the lookout in your next class for these new changes. Come with any questions. Be safe, peace.