2025 resuscitation guidelines: what changes for your DAE (AED)

Every five years, the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation publishes its CoSTR, the Consensus on Science with Treatment Recommendations. The 2025 edition appeared in Circulation in October 2025. It is the global synthesis of the scientific evidence on resuscitation, the basis on which continental learned societies then build their own guidelines.

The European Resuscitation Council followed with the ERC Guidelines 2025, officially launched in Rotterdam in October 2025 during the Resuscitation congress. Their scope covers adult BLS, meaning basic life support, ALS or advanced life support, special circumstances such as pregnancy, hypothermia, drowning or trauma, post resuscitation care, and finally education and the organisation of systems of care.

For an operator, the distinction matters. The CoSTR is a scientific reference, not a French regulatory text. Your equipment obligations remain the ones you already know: French public-access buildings (ERP) in categories 1 to 3 have been equipped since 1 January 2020, category 4 since 2021, and some category 5 ERP since 2022. These guidelines create no new purchasing obligation.

The CoSTR 2025 states it plainly: the quality of chest compressions and rapid access to a defibrillator determine survival. The ERC reaches the same conclusion. On the intervention itself, the principles remain stable: recognise, call for help, compress, defibrillate. What is changing is the ecosystem around the intervention, that is training, digital support and the organisation of the chain of survival.

In other words, no operator needs to question their equipment because the guidelines have been updated. The question these texts raise is not which defibrillator, but how long it takes for someone to have it in hand and know how to use it. On equipment selection, our buying guide and our comparison of DAE, DEA and DSA devices remain the starting point.

In 2025 the ERC stresses the first three to five minutes: compression quality and access to the DAE. This is consistent with what has long been known in France, where around 50,000 cardiac arrests occur each year and where every minute without defibrillation cuts the chances of survival by roughly 10 per cent.

Translated into concrete action, this means timing your own premises. Start from the furthest point in the building, walk to the cabinet, come back. If the round trip takes considerably more than three minutes, the problem is not your device but its location, or the fact that a single unit covers too large a site. Also check that the route stays usable outside office hours: a locked door cancels out the whole benefit of the investment.

A second practical point is signage. A DAE that nobody spots is a DAE that does not exist. Display the pictogram along circulation routes and point out the cabinet during evacuation drills.

The CoSTR 2025 confirms that learning cardiopulmonary resuscitation can begin as early as age 4, with the aim of raising the alarm: recognising that something is wrong and calling the emergency services. From around 12 to 15 years old, teenagers can learn effective compressions and how to use a DAE. The consensus speaks of a paradigm shift, with lifesaving skills training embedded in schools.

This direction is of interest to employers. It is a reminder that the useful action is within reach of a bystander with no clinical background, which should dispel any hesitation among your teams.

On the ground, the most cost effective measure is to map your trained staff: how many per department, per floor, per shift, including night teams and weekends. A properly equipped site whose first aiders all work mornings remains vulnerable in the afternoon.

Both documents converge on teaching methods. The CoSTR 2025 highlights the integration of augmented reality, virtual reality and gamification into resuscitation training, along with a systems approach and equity of access to resuscitation care, including adapting guidelines to low resource settings.

The ERC Guidelines 2025 point the same way, with a renewed teaching approach built around digital tools, the first mentions of artificial intelligence in the chain of survival for early detection and dispatching, and the role of social media and health advocacy in spreading lifesaving skills.

For a business, the consequence is simple: do not reduce training to a box ticking exercise. Alternate a full classroom session with short refreshers, on site, in front of the cabinet actually installed.

In France, AFGSU training (the national emergency care certificate) has historically been based on ERC guidelines, transposed by ANCESU. The techniques officially taught in AFGSU 1 and 2 therefore change only once they are incorporated into the national framework. That transposition is expected within 12 to 24 months, most likely after the national congress in Angers in December 2026.

In practice, a team trained in 2025 or 2026 remains trained under a valid framework. Nothing needs to be redone urgently. Good practice is to keep to the planned refresher cycle, then fold the new material into the following refresher once the framework has been revised.

A defibrillator is only useful if it works on the day it is opened. The 2025 guidelines insist on rapid access to the equipment, which presupposes a device that is ready. Pads are generally replaced every 2 to 5 years, batteries every 3 to 5 years, and the unit itself commonly lasts 8 to 10 years, sometimes longer. These deadlines deserve a line in your maintenance schedule, just like fire extinguishers.

Introduce a monthly visual check of the self test indicator and record the date in your safety register. Keep a spare set of pads on site. If you would rather outsource the monitoring, rental from 50 euros excl. VAT per month includes maintenance and removes the need to track expiry dates yourself. We set out these trade offs in our articles on the lifespan of a defibrillator and on choosing between renting and buying.

For a new site or an additional unit, allow 24 hours for a quotation, 2 to 5 working days for delivery and a 5 year warranty on the device.