Mentally singing the children’s nursery rhyme Nellie the Elephant provides no assistance in performing accurate CPR, in spite of conventional wisdom, a UK report claims.
Researchers recruited 130 volunteers who were given brief CPR training then asked to perform three one-minute sequences of continuous chest compression while listening to either Nellie the Elephant, That’s The Way (I Like It) or no music.
Although both songs had a similar and appropriate tempo, only Nellie the Elephant significantly improved participants’ ability to maintain a correct rate. However, the song also significantly increased the number of compressions delivered at an inadequate depth.
“The significantly greater proportion of compressions delivered at an inadequate depth when people listened to Nellie could be because of distraction from the task by the music, as several participants seemed amused by the song,” the study authors wrote in the BMJ.
“As current resuscitation guidelines give equal emphasis to the importance of performing chest compressions at both the correct rate and depth, we regretfully recommend that playing or imagining hearing Nellie the Elephant during CPR training should be discontinued,” they concluded.
“Our results also indicate that listening to That’s the Way (I like it) is not a suitable alternative,” they added.
BMJ 2009;339:b4707