Talk:Basic life support

Untitled
No, BLS should NOT be merged with CPR.

Basic Life Support is a level of prehospital medical care, the most that can be provided if paramedics, doctors or other advanced responders are unavailable.

CPR is just one of many techniques that can be useful in BLS.

I have tried to expand this article, with US and UK BLS guidelines and some references. I hope this is of some use. I feel that there probably still needs to be more depth and clarity in the introduction, which I will try to provide when I have more time. Gilo1969 (talk) 22:16, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 08:20, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2020 and 20 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Astrokassie.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 15:22, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Merge proposal
Basic life support (BLS) seems to be nothing more than first aid. As defined by the American Heart Association and the Resuscitation Council (UK) in the given citations, BLS is equivalent to "emergency first aid" in Canada and "basic first aid" in Australia. I suggest that encyclopedic content from this page be merged with the relevant sections of "First aid" and that "Basic life support" any any pages that redirect to it be redirected to "First aid" or a section thereof. G. C. Hood (talk) 16:44, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
 * BLS and first aid are not equivalent, though this article makes it seem like they are. This article is improperly focused entirely on the CPR courses by the AHA and Resuscitation Council, which comprise only a part of BLS. Essentially, BLS is scope of practice of what basic EMTs can perform. BLS and ALS are levels of care, while first aid is what lay people provide. First aid typically does not include BLS skills such as airway insertion, mechanical ventilation, oxygen administration, airway suctioning, and spinal immobilization. This, and other EMS-related articles have been relatively poor over the years, with lots of redundant content. Better defining the scope of each article would be a good start to improving these articles. --Scott Alter (talk) 08:41, 23 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose - First aid is a wide topic, covering many different skills, and BLS is a very focused topic looking at one set of protocols. OwainDavies (about)(talk) edited at 12:58, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on Basic life support. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051028183115/http://www.vfv.it:80/tecnica/capitolo_4.pdf to http://www.vfv.it/tecnica/capitolo_4.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 01:18, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Basic life support. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051202034805/http://www.resus.org.uk/pages/bls.pdf to http://www.resus.org.uk/pages/bls.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 13:58, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Proposed Changes
Hey Wikipedians. I'm focusing on this article to edit in my undergrad Technical and Professional editing course. Over the next couple weeks I plan on updating this page to follow Wikipedia's guidelines by Once I get a draft in my sandbox going, I'll post it here. If there's anything you'd like me to know about this article going forward, let me know. Astrokassie (talk) 17:25, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) Minor copyediting
 * 2) Rewriting the how-to/training sections into a more encyclopedic tone
 * 3) Organizing the random subheadings (like "choking" and "drowning") into more general ones
 * 4) Trying to incorporate more of the scope of BLS instead of just cardiac and respiratory emergencies, which seem to be the only ones mentioned here.
 * Realized that BLS is just the treatment of generally cardiac and respiratory emergencies, so disregard the part about incorporating more than that. Astrokassie (talk)
 * . Be aware that making a single major edit to an established article runs the risk of getting everything reverted in a single major undo by someone who finds sufficient problems to not be prepared to fix them all. It is often less stressful to make one's initial edits on Wikipedia as small edits, fixing one thing at a time, and taking feedback from the regulars into account for subsequent edits. This gives a less precipitous learning curve. Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 06:34, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I'm still trying to figure out what to even do with this article, given that it's mostly instructions. If you have any suggestions or want to work on this article with me, let me know. Astrokassie (talk)
 * . For a start, you could try describing the procedures, possibly adding some explanation of what they are intended to achieve. Add background information where it looks like it may be make the procedure clearer to the reader. Explain your actions in the edit summaries. Remember that nothing is irreversible. Give it a go on a small scale, see what the reception is like, discuss if anyone asks. Ping me if you want comment, and you can ask for suggestions and comments at WP:WikiProject Medicine. Start sooner rather than later, add references at least one per paragraph. Work in manageable chunks, but dont be shy to make small edits to fix typos, formatting errors and the like. Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 18:25, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

I have the same advice. If you make more smaller edits then it is easier for wiki reviewers to point to individual things you did for feedback. If you try making one big change then you and any reviewer would have to have additional conversation to point to what specifically is under discussion. WP:Be bold with many small edits and yes bring questions here to talk page.  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  21:52, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Deleting the instructional text
Hi again. I am wanting to delete all of the steps that are listed (WP:NOTHOWTO) because there are other pages (like Cardiopulmonary resuscitation) that do the job of explaining what doesn't need to be explained in detail here. I'm still working in the sandbox of what I would like the page to look like, but feel free to talk to me about what you think can be changed User:Astrokassie/sandbox2. I'm not going to make any huge changes to this page all at once. Astrokassie (talk) 18:34, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It is generally OK to link to another article which covers the topic in more detail rather than including a content fork (repeating the same details in another place). Use a summary section with a see also or main hatlink. The lead section of the main article can be a good guide to what should be in the summary section (if it has been written according to the manual of style, which is not always the case). You may have to look up references. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 06:40, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
 * In you sandbox you have a section "Other countries". This implies that the main article is about a specific country, which has not been identified and the title does not suggest that the topic is country-specific. It is preferable to make all articles as internationally applicable as reasonably practicable if the topic is internationally applicable - this is English language Wikipedia, it is used by a very wide range of people from all countries where English is an official language, and many people from other language regions because there may not be an equivalent in their own language Wikipedia, or en: may have a more comprehensive article. If there is a special reason why the article is about a regionally specific topic then that should be clear from the title. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 06:51, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Should I keep the section about the European Resuscitation Council the way it is currently, then? I feel like there's a better way to include that, because it's important, I just can't think of how. Astrokassie (talk) 23:19, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Thoughts? Concerns?
Hey all, I think I've finished editing this article to what I think is enough. I mostly just reorganized the information that was already present. I don't have enough time to do some research and add any new tabs, but per WP:MEDMOS tab suggestions, I think there's room to add a section on "Society and Culture." Maybe talk about how some laypeople are hesitant to perform BLS because of the fear of legal action and discuss the Good Samaritan Law a little. Let me know what you all think. Astrokassie (talk) 01:08, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Rearranging the existing content was what the article needed most.
 * The lead section should be a brief summary of the content of the whole article, taking into account relevance and due weight.
 * A section on legal consequences would be good. Be sure to specify national variations/scope of the law. Where adequate articles on such laws already exist, a short summary and a link is appropriate. A detailed discussion would only be appropriate if the law was specifically about BLS. If there are large numbers of applicable laws, an annotated list of links may be suitable.
 * A section on "Society and culture" would be good if you have references to use, but not urgent.
 * See also links are considered WP:Hatnotes by the MoS and the preferred placing is at the top of the section, directly below the section header.
 * The navboxes appear to be adequate for linking to related articles, but you might notice something that should be there and is not.
 * If you ever come across something you think should be added, you can come back and do that if no-one else has done it already. That is how Wikipedia works. Over time other people will make changes. Some will be good, others not. The bad stuff usually gets reverted quite quickly. The good stuff often inspires someone to expand further. I hope editing this article will inspire you to make more contributions when you use Wikipedia and see something you can improve. Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 05:17, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * (forgot to ping for above). &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 05:43, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: EDT 251 - Research Skills and Strategies
— Assignment last updated by Jktmiami (talk) 02:46, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Shock Section
Hey all, I just wanted to include a shock section under the indications portion of the article since it is covered under BLS protocol and there's a basic and passive procedure that can be carried out at the BLS level. Im working on the section right now but Ill include a paragraph and title once Im done with it. Stay tuned. Ailenilin (talk) 22:20, 15 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Here's a sneak peak
 * Shock, also known as Inadequate Tissue Perfusion, is a life-threatening condition that occurs as a result of the disruption to three major components of the cardiovascular system: Heart Function, Blood Vessel Function, and Blood Volume. Perfusion describes the process of adequate blood flow to the organs, where the waste and reactants that are involved in cellular respiration are removed or transported throughout the three parts of the cardiovascular system for metabolism to be processed effectively. However, if one part were to fail, important resources for cellular respiration such as oxygen would not be able to reach the organs that need it to function. In an attempt to compensate, the body would divert blood to organs that cannot tolerate the lack of blood, such as the heart and the brain, resulting in widespread vasoconstriction, or thinning of the blood vessels. Consequently, blood is prevented from reaching organs that can tolerate the lack of perfusion, or hypo perfusion, in organs such as the skin, resulting in the typical presentation of pale and clammy skin conditions during shock. Moreover, disruptions may present specifically to each component or multiple systems may be affected at the same time, which generally results in the three designated types of shock: Obstructive, Distributive, Hypovolemic. Typically, patients would have a presentation of shock at the Compensated, Decompensated, and Irreversible Stage. Source: : |edition= has extra text (help) Ailenilin (talk) 23:01, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Source: American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. (2021). Chapter 13: Obstructive Shock. In Emergency Care and Transportation of the Sick and Injured (12th ed., pp. 535–536). essay. Retrieved April 15, 2024, from https://a.co/d/7wnRhc Ailenilin (talk) 23:01, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Just to let yall know I moved my draft to the main page, feel free to review it for any mistakes. Thanks! Ailenilin (talk) 19:59, 29 April 2024 (UTC)