Unfortunately, this happens every year. I wonder if the physicals are even conducted before tryouts? Usual cause is an enlarged heart or heart murmur.
Unfortunately, this happens every year. I wonder if the physicals are even conducted before tryouts? Usual cause is an enlarged heart or heart murmur.
Currently the US only requires a standard physical to participate in sports (doctor feels around with the stethoscope, asks a few questions), not an ECG. A typical physical will usually miss this type of thing.
A few decades ago, Italy started requiring all youth athletics participants to get a full ECG before being allowed to participate. Their rate of sudden cardiac death in athletes has dropped by 90%. Many big-time sports programs in DI require this type of testing for their football or basketball recruits, too.
http://www.runningwritings.com/2014/04/should-young-athletes-undergo-testing.html
The American College of Preventive Medicine doesn't support this type of screening for all athletes, but the European Society of Cardiology does—in large part due to Italy's success.
Heart murmurs and enlarged hearts are not the usual cause.Some specific causes of sudden cardiac death in young people include:Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). This is a disease in which the heart muscle (myocardium) becomes abnormally thick, making it harder for the heart to pump blood.Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, while usually not fatal in most people, is the most common cause of heart-related sudden death in people under 30. It's the most common cause of sudden death in athletes. HCM often goes undetected.Coronary artery abnormalities. Sometimes people are born with heart arteries (coronary arteries) that are connected abnormally. The arteries can become compressed during exercise and may not provide proper blood flow to the heart.Long QT syndrome. Long QT syndrome is an inherited heart rhythm disorder that can cause fast, chaotic heartbeats. The rapid heartbeats, caused by changes in the part of your heart that causes it to beat, may lead to fainting. These irregular heartbeats can be life-threatening.http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sudden-cardiac-arrest/in-depth/sudden-death/art-20047571
markschultz25 wrote:
Unfortunately, this happens every year. I wonder if the physicals are even conducted before tryouts? Usual cause is an enlarged heart or heart murmur.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/n-girl-dies-collapsing-cross-country-tryouts-article-1.2318494
Why do they always die during tryouts though? Is it because it's the hardest they've ever pushed themselves? I never hear of young people dying during their own individual workouts. Would they have experienced symptoms at earlier points in their athletic careers but ignored them?
tryouts for xc are wrong. let people be on the team.
Perhaps trying have a certain sense of valuation to them that triggers the mind to overrule the body. Most marathoners die in sight of the finish line, don't they? Almost there, ignore the pain. But when being on the team is all-important, and failing to make it means big teenage drama, I can see it helping ignore all alarm bells the body will ring..
hghghghg wrote:
tryouts for xc are wrong. let people be on the team.
I don't know any HS coaches who use tryouts to keep kids off a team. Tryouts are the first opportunity to sort kids into workout groups and assess their general readiness for the season.. They are used as a starting point for picking the initial varsity team, with everyone else being JV (not kept off the team).
the article states that she had a physical. She was also on her middle school's basketball team. This was not the case of an out of shape kid pushing herself to the limit to make a team. Not that it matters.
I've had many kids flagged by school doctors for some type of abnormality (usually nothing serious) and I've had kids whose own doctors refused to clear them for teams unless they were seen by cardiologists.
Our school requires cardiac heart testing as one of requisites before you are allowed to practice with team. Yes, a pain in the ass to have a kid do this along with his physical, consent forms, concussion testing etc, but better to be safe
njcoach22 wrote:
Our school requires cardiac heart testing as one of requisites before you are allowed to practice with team. Yes, a pain in the ass to have a kid do this along with his physical, consent forms, concussion testing etc, but better to be safe
So many dumb things are done in the name of "its better to be safe." That goes up next to "If it helps one person" in the pantheon of stupid crap that people say.
Here's the thing - life is dangerous. And if you divert resources to cardiac screening for kids (the vast majority don't need it), you take it from somewhere else.
This is terrible tragedy. Let's not make it worse by trying to prevent the unpreventable.
Also, let's not put overmuch emphasis on the article's use of "tryouts."
Many people use that term simply for any preseason practices, not necessarily competitive, go-fast-or-go-home time trials.
But it is preventable. See my post above re: Italy. 90% reduction in sudden cardiac death in young athletes. Do you not wear your seatbelt either?
More likely, the stories that make the news are the ones that have some sort of existential ring to it. The stories you hear about are the runners who finish a marathon, collapse, and die, but in fact, most people who collapse AFTER the race are going to be fine (
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21948122). It's the ones that collapse during the race that are more likely to be having a medical emergency. People collapse and die during pick-up basketball games, out on runs by themselves, etc., as well as at high-stakes events.
A 90% reduction sounds great. However, you would have to set that very small # against the number of kids not allowed to do sports who would otherwise have not had any heart problems but now do not exercise and live shorter lives. The net will typically catch too many people.
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
njcoach22 wrote:
Our school requires cardiac heart testing as one of requisites before you are allowed to practice with team. Yes, a pain in the ass to have a kid do this along with his physical, consent forms, concussion testing etc, but better to be safe
I'd really rather be able to determine my own risk tolerance level. Why make testing mandatory? A parent who is concerned about cardiac issues is free to take their kid to the doctor for testing on their own. If I'm willing to accept the risk of competing without testing, or even competing with a known risk factor, that should be my call.
But it is preventable. See my post above re: Italy. 90% reduction in sudden cardiac death in young athletes. Do you not wear your seatbelt either?
You know what will reduce the number of deaths in young athletes? Banning sports. I go through this with our IT people at work all the time. They want to ban any software that they're not familiar with ( a surprisingly large selection of software)
The analogy with seatbelts is facile. Adding seatbelts to cars is a minimal cost. Doing cardiac screening in otherwise healthy kids taxes an otherwise overwhelmed health care system.
I'm not saying that individual parents shouldn't talk to their pediatricians and ask whether their kids should be screened. I'm saying that it shouldn't be school district policy.
When it's your time, it's your time. Ain't nothing anyone can do about it. It all happen spontaneously.
The most common cause of death is... birth.
llort_vbo wrote:
But it is preventable. See my post above re: Italy. 90% reduction in sudden cardiac death in young athletes. Do you not wear your seatbelt either?
You know what will reduce the number of deaths in young athletes? Banning sports. I go through this with our IT people at work all the time. They want to ban any software that they're not familiar with ( a surprisingly large selection of software)
The analogy with seatbelts is facile. Adding seatbelts to cars is a minimal cost. Doing cardiac screening in otherwise healthy kids taxes an otherwise overwhelmed health care system.
I'm not saying that individual parents shouldn't talk to their pediatricians and ask whether their kids should be screened. I'm saying that it shouldn't be school district policy.
The seatbelt analogy is pretty good actually. A seatbelt system costs several hundred dollars, surely. What's a 12-lead ECG test cost? It can't be THAT much seeing as italy does it on every kid who wants to do sports. Lots of rich private schools in the US do it too.
I'll make my own decision wrote:
njcoach22 wrote:Our school requires cardiac heart testing as one of requisites before you are allowed to practice with team. Yes, a pain in the ass to have a kid do this along with his physical, consent forms, concussion testing etc, but better to be safe
I'd really rather be able to determine my own risk tolerance level. Why make testing mandatory? A parent who is concerned about cardiac issues is free to take their kid to the doctor for testing on their own. If I'm willing to accept the risk of competing without testing, or even competing with a known risk factor, that should be my call.
7th circuit court of appeals says otherwise.
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-7th-circuit/1379984.html