Give that Kid an EKG
posted by Helen at 4:47 PM
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Contributors
Previous Posts
- Podcast on Voter Fraud
- School Killers--Evil, Sick or Socially Toxic?
- Podcast with Michael Totten
- Homeschooling among Black Families is on the Rise
- School Shooters, Depression and Prevention
- New York to Ban Trans Fats?
- Don't Blame the Guy, He was Just Hormonal
- "Ugly" Americans Abroad
- Grand Rounds is Up
- If Only We Could Understand These Women
7 Comments:
We might ask an expert on this, but I thought the primary risk was from what used to be called IHSS, idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis. This is correlated with a systolic variable intensity murmur; of course that's a finding on auscultation of the heart. Also perhaps best picked up by a left ventricular echocardiogram, which assesses the size of the left ventricle. Without further opinion, I wouldn't trust an EKG to pick it up. I wonder if the report isn't substituting 'EKG' for whatever 'whole exam' process they do.
How expensive are EKGs? Is it practical to put every high school athlete through one? How many lives would be saved?
I know of one football player whose life was saved by an EKG: Jonathan Stupar of the University of Virginia. But he got the EKG not at the hospital, but at the trainer's room when he was getting treatment on his foot.
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=85199&ran=168429
Above link
I am not a doctor, but:
An issue with all of this kind of testing, including those full body scans you hear about on the radio, is that if you test everyone you are going to get a certain number of "false positives" which generally lead to more invasive, dangerous, and expensive test proceedures.
When dealing with a statistically low risk population, you have to consider the dangers of further investigation of the false positives you will inevitably encounter.
My wife had personal experience with this when, at age 30, she had a mammogram which turned out to be a false positive after a painful breast biopsy, which had all of the accompanying risks of any surgery done under general anesthesia.
Unless you have specific family history or other unusual risk factor for a condition, I would stick to the tests suggested for your age bracket by the medical community.
There are always exceptions, such as Dr. Helen's heart attack, and clearly testing everyone will save some lives. But over a broad population, a certain number of people will die or be injured by the further testing required after a false positive. Those numbers have to be balanced out.
Every school should have an automated electronic defibrilator (AED) available, preferably close to the gym. In my experience, adults attending athletic events are much more likely to need emergency care than the atheletes.
Yes, I agree. But imagine the fun the kids could have with it.
視訊做愛視訊美女無碼A片情色影劇kyo成人動漫tt1069同志交友網ut同志交友網微風成人論壇6k聊天室日本 avdvd 介紹免費觀賞UT視訊美女交友..........................
Post a Comment
<< Home