When should CPR be administered?

CPR should be administered when a person is unresponsive and not breathing because this indicates a critical, life-threatening situation, typically associated with cardiac arrest or severe respiratory distress. In this state, the person's heart is not effectively pumping blood, and without immediate intervention, there is a high risk of irreversible brain damage or death within minutes.

Recognizing unresponsiveness involves checking for a reaction when you shake the individual or shout for help. If there is no response, the next step is to assess breathing. The lack of normal breathing further emphasizes the necessity for CPR, which involves chest compressions to manually pump blood through the body, and may also include rescue breaths if the rescuer is trained to do so.

Other options reflect scenarios that do not warrant CPR: sleeping individuals typically do not require CPR unless you find them in distress or unresponsive; chest pain may require medical attention but does not automatically indicate the need for CPR; and coughing does not indicate a lack of breathing, so CPR would not be appropriate. The focus of CPR is solely on situations where the person's life is immediately threatened due to unresponsiveness and absence of breathing.