Does music help prehospital professionals provide better CPR? Not according to authors of a study published online this week in Emergency Medicine Journal.
Specifically, researchers from the UK and Australia explored whether listening to “Achy Breaky Heart” or “Disco Science,” compared with not listening to music, increased the proportion of CPR-trained health professionals delivering compressions at the 100 bpm recommended rate and 4–5 cm depth.
They found that listening to Disco Science while performing CPR did not increase the proportion of rescuers delivering compressions correctly. "Perhaps unsurprisingly," they said, "listening to Achy Breaky Heart had a negative effect. Disconcertingly, regardless of the nature or absence of musical accompaniment, the majority of participants did not compress at the recommended rate or depth."
SOURCE: Emerg Med J 2011;28:e2 doi:10.1136/emermed-2011-200645.11