Key Updates in the 2025 AHA CPR Guidelines

The American Heart Association’s 2025 CPR guidelines introduce critical changes to enhance clarity, responsiveness, and integration across emergency care protocols.

On choking, the guidance now recommends alternating five back blows with five abdominal thrusts for conscious adults and older children until the object is expelled or the patient becomes unresponsive. That explicit sequencing replaces earlier advice that emphasized abdominal thrusts or left variation to local teaching, and it is designed to make public instructions and BLS education more consistent at the point of care.

In addressing the growing impact of opioid-related emergencies, the new guidelines incorporate the first-ever public access opioid overdose algorithm. This includes signs of opioid overdose, when to administer naloxone, and when to provide rescue breaths. The framework emphasizes immediate recognition and action by bystanders and dispatchers, integrating opioid overdose care within the broader CPR guidance rather than treating it as a separate public health intervention.

Finally, the AHA consolidates prior, scenario-specific threads into a single chain of survival that emphasizes early recognition, rapid CPR, timely defibrillation, advanced life support, and integrated post‑arrest care. The unified model is intended to streamline system design, public messaging, and quality metrics across in‑hospital and out‑of‑hospital settings.