Colors For Chest Compressions
The SmartMan colors are easy to understand. The real time feedback produces the colored bars each time you do something on the manikin. You always aim to produce bright green bars. As the colors move from left to right (from bright green to red) it is worse for the patient |
COMPRESSIONS - COLORED BARS (Depth, Rate and Release)
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Bright |
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Dark Green = correct rate but too deep or not deep enough |
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Orange =
rate too fast. Target rate is 100 per minute or 0.6 for one. |
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Red =
rate too slow. Target rate is 100 per minute or 0.6 for one. |
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A red bar can appear beneath any colored bar. It means that the chest was not fully released. The height of the red bar from the bottom indicates how far the chest was still depressed when the next compression began. |
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The two horizontal lines on the screen show the target depth of the compression. It should be between 1.5 and 2.0 inches. A higher bar is a deeper compression. |
CHEST COMPRESSION SAMPLE
Here is an example taken from 1 set of 30 compressions. Each bar on the graph is produced as you press on the chest. It is produced in real time. You create the graph as you perform compressions. Thus you can see and feel in your muscles what it is like to go too fast or too slow as well as too shallow or too deep.
In the graph below, the first compression was too slow so it is red. The next three compressions are dark green so they were performed at the correct rate but we can see that they went over the line which indicates 2 inches. Thus they are a bit too deep. There are 5 orange bars which indicate they were too fast and we can see that they were mostly too deep as well. There are several compressions of various colors where the person did not allow the chest to fully release before starting the next compression. These have a red line beneath them. 
Links to More information on SmartMan Colors:
- SmartMan Colors Summary
- Color Detail for Ventilations
(For Rescue Breathing and Ventilations delivered during CPR) - Color Detail for CPR
(For both 1 and 2 person CPR) - Color Detail for CPR with an Advanced Airway
(Continuous Chest Compressions on an intubated patient with timed ventilations)