Adult CPR guidelines apply to anyone who has reached puberty/adolescence and older, which is often approximated as about 13 years and up (including all typical “adult” ages).

Age ranges in CPR guidelines

  • Infant CPR: from birth up to less than 1 year of age.
  • Child CPR: from 1 year of age up to the onset of puberty/adolescence (commonly around 12 years old).
  • Adult CPR: from the onset of puberty/adolescence and older; many training materials treat this as teenagers who look physically adult and all adults (often written as 13+ or 20+ depending on the classification system, but clinically based on signs of puberty).

In practice, providers are taught that once a person has clear signs of puberty (e.g., developed secondary sexual characteristics), you use adult CPR techniques and follow adult CPR guidelines.

TL;DR: For exam-style questions, the safest phrasing is:

Adult CPR guidelines are used for victims from the onset of puberty and older.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.