By Ed Edelson
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, March 31 (HealthDay News) -- If you see someone collapse in a public place or at home and you think it might be a heart attack, start pushing on his or her chest as hard as you can and as often as you can.

EW YORK - A new approach to cardiac resuscitation designed to maintain nearly constant chest compressions triples the rate of survival of "out-of-hospital" cardiac arrest, study findings suggest.

"Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is a major public health problem and a leading cause of death," note the study investigators. "Although early defibrillation with automated external defibrillators improves survival, early defibrillation is rare and few patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survive."

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Several studies now show that applying chest compressions alone to a heart attack victim, rather than complete mouth-to-mouth resuscitation CPR may be good enough to save lives.

One study in Sweden looked at the survival rates of cardiac arrest victims who had been given standard CPR with rescue breaths or chest compressions alone. Looking at the outcomes of 11,275 patients, the researchers found no difference in survival between those who received CPR with mouth-to-mouth breathing and those who received CPR with only chest compressions.