U.VA. TO OFFER FREE CPR CLASSES TO
FAMILY MEMBERS OF HEART PATIENTS

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Jan.7 -- The majority of witnessed heart
attacks
happen in the home, according to a study published in Academic Emergency
Medicine in June 1997. Yet when heart attacks occur in the home, only 17
percent of patients receive CPR. Too often, family members just haven't
learned the skills necessary to keep someone alive in an emergency
situation.
	The University of Virginia Life Support Learning Center is
hoping
to change that.
	The Center is offering free CPR classes for family members and
neighbors of U.Va. Heart Center patients. The classes began in December
and
will be
offered several times each month at various times and locations.
	"Family members can suffer enormous guilt if a loved one has a
heart attack and dies and they didn't know how to perform the CPR that
might have kept
that person alive until paramedics arrived," said Dr. Bill Hammill,
medical
director of the Life Support Learning Center.  "And since people with
coronary artery disease are at risk for having a heart attack, it seemed
logical to offer CPR classes to their family members"
	Sommers Draper, basic life support instructor, said that a
person's
chances of surviving a heart attack can depend on whether or not the
other
people living in the home or nearby know what to do. "Through this
program,
we hope to teach people not only how to perform CPR but also how to
recognize the
early warning signs of a heart attack," she said. Hammill said that the
Center plans to expand the program this spring to offer CPR classes to
parents of at-risk pediatric patients.
###
January 7, 1999
For more information, call the Life Support Learning Center at (804)
924-1765.