Expertise is extremely important, in fact expertise is the crux of our screening programme – without expertise, one opens themselves up to litigation. The conditions that we’re dealing with are rare, one considers that the prevalence of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is one in 500, the prevalence of ARVC is one in 1000, the prevalence of Brugada syndrome
There is a relationship between sudden cardiac death and sport. However it is important to emphasise that sport is good for the heart. Sport reduces the risk of high blood pressure, it improves cholesterol levels and generally, it reduces the risk of someone dying from a cardiac problem. Indeed people who play sport on a regular
The antagonist could argue that screening for cardiovascular disease is a waste of time because once a disorder is identified, nothing can be done to prevent sudden death. I need to wipe these types of statements out, completely abolish them because there’s a lot that can be done otherwise there’d be no point screening. We can
Screening for cardiac diseases can be a complex situation but we are trying to adopt a cost effective screening programme and this screening programme comprises of a health questionnaire which enquires specifically about the cardinal symptoms of cardiac diseases such as chest pain, breathlessness, dizziness, palpitations or black outs and also importantly enquires about family history
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWr6YOnVm5E At the CRY screening programme, all ECGs are read by a cardiac research fellow. ECGs deemed remotely abnormal are read by me. So, everybody with a remotely abnormal ECG has the ECG read by a junior cardiologist and a very senior cardiologist and based upon this, we make decisions regarding further investigations.
The current screening programme, which involves an ECG and a health questionnaire, will not identify all conditions that cause sudden cardiac death. There are conditions such as anomalous coronary arteries and premature coronary artery disease that will be missed by our screening programme. Having said that, conditions like the cardiomyopathies and the ion channel disorders and
There are several things that can cause cardiac problems in young people. These can range from very serious conditions such as long QT syndrome or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or minor conditions such as mitral valve prolapse. By that I mean a floppy mitral valve or a small atrial septal defect, by that I mean a very small
There is no need to bring anything with you, apart from yourself. This screening programme involves filling out a health questionnaire so it's important to bring details about your General Practitioner, any relevant medical conditions that you may have. Any medications that you may be taking, you need to be aware of what they are or
In the CRY screening programme, following a health questionnaire and an ECG, between four and five percent of individuals require a heart scan. We subject those individuals to heart scans, in whom we believe there may be evidence of a cardiomyopathy, a valve disorder or a hole in the heart. In general, we only identify a
At Cardiac Risk in the Young, we have many technicians, of which I’d say 60 or 70% are female. There are no issues at all with a female wanting to be screened by another female technician and that would be fully possible at any of our screening programmes. We also ensure that there’s always a female