Basic life support (BLS) is a level of medical care which is used for patients with life-threatening illness or injury until the patient can be given full medical care. It can be provided by trained medical personnel, including emergency medical technicians, and by laypersons who have received BLS training. BLS is generally used in the pre-hospital setting, and can be provided without medical equipment.
BLS generally does not include the use of drugs or invasive skills, and can be contrasted with the provision of Advanced Life Support (ALS). Most laypersons can master BLS skills after attending a short course.Firefighters and police officers are often required to be BLS certified. BLS is also immensely useful for many other professions, such as daycare providers, teachers and security personnel.
CPR provided in the field buys time for higher medical responders to arrive and provide ALS care. For this reason it is essential that any person starting CPR also obtains ALS support by calling for help via radio using agency policies and procedures and/or using an appropriate emergency telephone number.
An important advance in providing BLS is the availability of the automated external defibrillator or AED, which can be used to defibrillation or delivery. This improves survival outcomes in cardiac arrest cases.
Basic life support consists of a number of life-saving techniques focused on the medicine "ABC"s of pre-hospital emergency care:
Airway: the protection and maintenance of a clear passageway for gases (principally oxygen and carbon dioxide) to pass between the lungs and the outside of the body
Breathing: inflation and deflation of the lungs (respiration) via the airway
Circulation: providing an adequate blood supply to the body, especially critical organs, so as to deliver oxygen to all cells and remove carbon dioxide, via the perfusion of blood throughout the body,
Healthy people maintain the ABCs by themselves. In an emergency situation, due to illness (medical condition) or trauma, BLS helps the patient ensure his or her own ABCs, or assists in maintaining fir the patient who is unable to do so. For airways, this will include maintaining optimal angles or possible insertion of oral or nasal adjuncts, to keep the airway unblocked. For breathing, this may include artificial respiration, often assisted by emergency oxygen. For circulation, this may include bleeding control or Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) techniques to manually stimulate the heart and assist its pumping action. In each case, the BLS provider is trained to detect ABC problems and attempt to correct them.
BLS also typically includes considerations of patient transport such as various forms immobilization to prevent additional injury, including cervical collars, splinting limbs, and full body splints (backboards).
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