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HowToPreventHeartDisease.com |
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Can Sudden Cardiac Death In Youngsters Be Prevented? It is not uncommon to hear from friends, relatives or news that someone whom you might know or might not simply drop dead after physical exertion. Many of these victims were young athletes or military personnel who are fit and in good health suffer sudden cardiac death after events like marathon or military training. Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is a sudden and unexpected death as a result of loss of heart function. The victim may have abrupt loss of consciousness within an hour of the start of acute symptoms. But sudden death can be non-cardiac as well. Some good examples are anaphylaxis, respiratory arrest, toxicity or poisoning, or trauma. In the United States, SCD is the largest cause of natural death. Each year, there are about 325,000 adults die of SCD, which is also responsible for half of all heart disease deaths. Most SCD cases are in older adults, only few occur in young people, with the risk estimated to be between 1.2 and 2.3 in every 100,000 per year for those below the age of 35. Causes of SCD might vary among adults of different age groups. For victims aged above 35 years old, the major cause is coronary artery disease. The majority of those victims who aged below 35 have congenital heart condition. These people were born with a defect in the structure of their heart and great vessels. Approximately 9 people in 1000 are born with a congenital heart defect.
The most common congenital condition found is the thickening of heart muscles. It is responsible for 3 in 10 young adults who had SCD. Another condition, in which the blood vessels supplying the heart are abnormally positioned and in extreme physical exertion, the blood supply could be cut off, accounts for 1 in 10 deaths. Other possible conditions include congenital scarring of the right heart muscles that might lead to life-threatening arrhythmia (abnormal heart rhythm) during exercise, and disorder in the balance of electrolytes resulting in electrical instability leading to lethal arrhythmia. Can SCD be prevented? According to doctors, cardiovascular screening tests can often help them identify those at a higher risk of heart conditions, such as those with a family history of heart attack. These screening tests can be divided into basic and more sophisticated ones. Basic tests include ECG (electrocardiography), treadmill stress test, echocardiogram, and 24-hour Holter monitoring that uses a machine that continuously records the heart's rhythm, while the more sophisticated tests include scanning the heart by MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) or CT (computed tomography) or both. Usually, doctors would begin with the basic tests, and proceed to the sophisticated ones only when they pick up abnormalities. Nevertheless, these tests do have some limitations. For instance, ECG cannot identify some heart conditions. In such cases, doctors would have to adopt further sophisticated cardiac evaluation. Once the patients are aware of their heart conditions, it is advisable for them to consult their doctors before engaging competitive sports. For people with some conditions like hypertrophic cardiomyopathy should avoid most competitive sports. But this does not mean that they have to avoid exercise altogether. Their doctors should be able to advise them what kind of activities and behaviors they should avoid. While many heart defects might not need treatments, some complex congenital heart defects require medical or surgical treatments to lower their risk of sudden death. For those with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) might be required. ICD is a paper-sized device implanted in the chest like a pacemaker. It continuously monitors the heartbeat. If a life-threatening arrhythmia occurs, the ICD delivers electrical shocks to restore a normal heart rhythm. People, who already have coronary artery disease or even if they do not have, should bear in mind that certain lifestyle changes might help them reduce the risk of SCD. These lifestyle changes include quitting smoking, losing weight, exercising regularly, adopting low-fat diet, managing diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol.
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