CPR & First Aid certification

Free classes offered through work. Nice!  Each class is four hours, which I think is about appropriate, but a few 30-60 minute refreshers through-out the year wouldn't be bad.

The CPR went through the basics of cardiopulminary rescuscitation, breathing for someone else and chest compressions.  The simple theory is to prevent cell damage due to hypoxia/ischemia by circulating enough blood/oxygen to keep the vic stable until professional help arrives.

One of the things that we covered was stroke victims. This hits home a little more since my dad had a stroke. 

I haven't gotten all the details, but as far as strokes go, his was "pretty good".  First off, it was ischemic, and while I don't know his Barthel scores, he was pretty active and lucid. 

In interacting with him, there was little to no pronator drift, no hemispatial neglect that I could detect, and certainly no anosognosia whatsoever. 

The few obvious symptoms were emotional lability, a slight weakness in one leg (I refer to him as "walking in circles") resulting in him dragging his foot a bit while walking. 

As time goes on it's hard to tell what is caused by age, or by stroke - certainly they compound eachother with apathy and incontinence and also decreased appetite.

After all this, I learn that there is nothing I could do even if I'm present when someone has a stroke. Keep them comfortable and wait for the professionals. 

With my dad, I was surprised to see that his English and German were both intact, and though he would have to hunt for certain words, his impediment is so slight that it would be hard to determine if it's stroke-cause aphasia or just age.  Being spoken to in English, he'd sometimes reply in Swedish - confusing to my (ex-)girlfriend, amusing to me, and not noticeable to my dad. hehe

What it boils down to is that I can keep someone comfortable and keep enough air flowing to stave off more serious complications until EMS arrives.  I hope I never have to.

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