Developing the sports physical of the future

Every few years there’s news coverage on a young, assumed-healthy athlete, who suddenly dies on the field or court. Sometimes the tragedy even happens right in front of the players’ teammates, coaches and parents. Later, the autopsy often reveals a previously undetected heart condition like hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, leaving many to wonder, “Why didn’t we know about this problem sooner?” To help, Boston Children’s Hospital researchers are working on revamping current methods to screen for potential heart problems in young athletes—without adding huge expenses or time burdens to existing techniques. Unfortunately current screening tests for cardiovascular risks in young athletes aren’t always a great indicator that there’s a real problem. Electrocardiography (ECG) is the most common way to detect a heart problem in a young athlete, but the test has a high rate of reporting false positives, or false alarms. That’s problematic for several reasons. For starters, the athletes who would likely get a false positive from an ECG, about 10 percent of the entire population, would need to be benched immediately to see a cardiologist for more tests. This would lead to a lot of worry for thousands of families and result in weeks or months spent away from sports. There is also the issue of costs. If all these athletes required additional heart tests it would lead to hundreds of thousands of dollars in added medical costs. That’s a ...
Source: Thrive, Children's Hospital Boston - Category: Pediatrics Authors: Tags: All posts Diseases & conditions Health & wellness Parenting Research Screening Sports & exercise Division of Sports Medicine electroencephalograms (EEG) sudden death in young athletes Source Type: news