Humming to upbeat songs like “Nellie the Elephant” while compressing the chest of a heart attack victim could improve a life-saving heart resuscitation technique, scientists said Monday. A study into cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training found that listening to music with the right tempo helped people keep to a rate of 100 chest compressions per minute - the rate recommended in expert guidelines. Researchers from the Universities of Birmingham, Coventry and Hertfordshire in Britain gave 130 untrained volunteers a brief demonstration on a resuscitation mannequin. The participants had one minute to practice while listening to a metronome and were then asked to perform three sequences of one minute of continuous chest compressions while listening on headphones to the songs “Nellie the Elephant,” by Little Bear, and “That's the Way (I Like It),” by KC and the Sunshine Band. Around 32 percent of volunteers got the rate right with Nellie, compared with 12 percent for no music and 9 percent for That's the Way. But it also increased the number of compressions which were not hard enough. The rate and depth of chest compressions is important for CPR. An earlier pilot study used the Bee Gees song “Stayin' Alive,”
