That is the advice of Dr Janine Winters.
The Dunedin School of Medicine’s Bioethics Centre physician said the benefits of chest compressions for frail elderly people without a pulse were dubious and the burdens were high.
"Many people have a vision of chest compressions as care that miraculously brings people back to life, even people who are very sick.
"They see movies that show this.
"They watch — frankly amazing — footage of young people being brought back to life with chest compressions and they think it will also help people with end-stage disease and frailty."
"In my mid-20s, I was a newly qualified doctor and was feeling like I’d be the hero of my dreams going to help people by providing CPR.
"But what I found was that the conversations hadn’t happened with people about who it would help and who it wouldn’t.
"So most of the time we were called in for frail people in the last part of their life."
Rest-homes should have discussions about when to administer CPR on its residents, and proper consent and guidelines should be implemented, she said.
"Choking care is not CPR — our paper advocates for standard measures for choking.
"When a person is found down, clearing their airway and providing a rescue breath may fix the problem — it also provides some time to figure out what is going on."
She hoped the research would lead to greater understanding of CPR.
"So it isn’t an easy answer about when is the right time.
"For most people when they are pulseless outside of some specific settings, CPR doesn’t help people with chronic illness and frailty."
Her article, "By their Side, Not on their Chest", was published last week in the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry.
It argued aged residential care facilities should be allowed to create and adopt an informed "no chest compression" policy.
"We want people really to understand that CPR isn’t magic.
"There’s lots of different words that they need to understand and that they need to work with their doctors, and that these are conversations that need to occur before a crisis.
"Take some time to put in some thought. So that people die, as we say, with somebody by their side holding their hand rather than on their chest."
Co-researcher Emma Hutchinson said she was motivated to undertake this research soon after her father died from a chronic illness.
"He told us he didn’t want CPR performed on him, which I initially found upsetting because it felt like he was giving up on a chance at prolonging his time with us.
"However, through some hard conversations with him, my mindset and my understanding of what CPR is intended for changed."
