Blog

The Sycamore school board recently declined an offer from Simon’s Fund to pay for and organize a heart screening for the students in the District.  The board said that (1) they cannot support mass heart screenings because of the American Heart Association; and (2) that this is a matter for...

  By Nancy Walsh, Staff Writer, MedPage Today Published: March 21, 2011 Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco and Dorothy Caputo, MA, RN, BC-ADM, CDE, Nurse Planner Screening healthy children with electrocardiography (ECG) and echocardiography could detect previously undiagnosed conditions that might lead to...

(Reuters Health) – Screening athletes for hidden heart problems may not help prevent sudden deaths, a new study from Israel finds. The findings, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, cast doubts on the usefulness of widespread, mandatory screening of young athletes with electrocardiography, or ECG. The...

It started last night with Selection Sunday.  It builds this week with brackets and office pools.  It explodes this weekend with the first round of the NCAA Tournament as we march to the Final Four.  It’s a great time of year . . . as long as you are focused on college...

Simon’s Fund honors a tot whose sudden death has long-lasting impact on research Rachel Vigoda Jewish Exponent Feature March 10, 2011 Simon Prushan, 12, is getting ready for his Bar Mitzvah this fall. He’s learning the aliyahs, practicing his Haftorah portion — and setting up heart screenings for students in...

What, you don’t believe me?  My figure is only 39,999,960 more than the figure thrown around today by the medical experts called upon to discuss sudden cardiac arrest and student athletes.  As crazy as this sounds, their figure is much more misleading because we expect their figure to be rooted in research, science and...

Two recent studies here in the U.S. — published in the Annals of Internal Medicine –looked at ECG testing along with the PPE sports physical exams. The first study found that adding an ECG to a routine sports physical doubled the number of cases of potential heart problems detected when...

As Americans, we will spend approximately $15 billion on gifts for Valentine’s Day.  This statistic, coupled with the fact that a calendar mandates we declare our love for someone, makes it easy to hate this holiday.  It’s commercial, it’s fabricated and it’s contrived. The real Valentine’s Day commemorates several Christian martyrs from Ancient Rome.  The romance thing didn’t enter the...

This is an excerpt.  The full article can be seen here. Officials are still trying to determine the cause of death of a 17-year-old athlete from Oregon who collapsed just minutes after winning a wrestling match, KGW-TV reported. Charley Engelfried was walking off the mat Thursday night when he suddenly...

The Today Show did a nice segment today on whether it makes sense to screen the hearts of athletes.  They spoke to Michele Snyer, a friend and parent who lost a daughter to sudden cardiac arrest.  They covered a screening conduted by Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan.  They’ve screened...