Heart palpitations are often benign, but if there is discomfort and/or a family history of heart problems, they should be evaluated, and if palpitations were brought on by exercise or you are feeling lightheaded, emergency care should be sought, Dr. “When there is a very sudden loss of consciousness, that’s a quite serious symptom to have and requires urgent evaluation at a hospital,” he says. Symptoms to watch for include unexplained blackouts for example, faints not attributed to a drop in blood pressure or shock from seeing blood, Dr. Red flags include a family history of arrhythmias or premature and unexpected sudden cardiac deaths. “There has been a lot of progress made, especially by Mayo Clinic, in studying athletes who have these conditions and making us realise that more can return to sports than we thought possible, because the risks may be not quite as high as we thought.” “In the end, it is the athlete’s decision,” he says. There are many older patients with pacemakers who are still playing golf, but it may be questionable at the elite level, due to the stress golf swings place on medical hardware in the body, Dr. “For example, defibrillators used to protect patients at risk of life-threatening heart problems are not usually considered conducive to continuing elite sports,” particularly contact sports such as rugby and American football, he says. Treatment requires a personalised approach that depends on many factors, Dr. Behr says.Ĭontinuing sports can be more difficult in people with long-standing heart muscle problems or electrical problems in the heart. That also can be the case with people who have been found to have extra pathways in the heart, known as Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, Dr. They can then return to normal activities.” These are often very amenable to ‘curative’ treatments such as ablation therapy, where a minimally invasive approach is used to block abnormal heart signals. “There will be athletes who have suffered palpitations caused by non-life-threatening heart rhythm problems such as supraventricular tachycardia, or SVT, an abnormally fast heartbeat. “It depends on the condition and its severity and whether the person has had symptoms or consequences of it already,” Dr. Strides have been made to help athletes with heart rhythm disorders stay in the game: Genetic testing would be performed with clinical heart tests and provided with genetic counselling it would then be determined if preventive steps should be taken, such as medications or implantable devices to regulate heart rhythm, Dr. “There are no data currently to support doing predictive genetic testing for sudden cardiac death risk in the general population, so the people we are focusing on now are those where we know there is a family history of genetic heart problems or there is an unexpected sudden cardiac death in a family that, particularly in young people, is more likely to have a genetic basis,” Dr. Researchers are also studying whether it is possible to predict risk of sudden cardiac death in the general population, he adds. “Where genetic testing is now moving is to identify risk in a number of different ways.”įor example, one area of active research focuses on identifying genetic risk of sudden cardiac death in people from acquired rather than genetic causes, such as people with coronary artery problems, Dr. “ Genetic testing has reached quite an advanced stage for groups at high risk of arrhythmias, such as people with a family history of heart rhythm disorders or unexpected sudden cardiac deaths,” Dr. How genetic testing has advanced to predict and prevent sudden cardiac death: They might need medication and/or implantable heart rhythm devices.” If there is permanent damage, they may need treatment to prevent future problems or underlying heart failure. “If it is managed, simple rehabilitation should be sufficient. “It depends how persistent and severe the damage to the heart muscle,” Dr. Patients who have arrhythmias with COVID may need cardiac rehabilitation or other ongoing care. Heart rhythm disorder treatment during COVID is similar to treatment under normal circumstances, but health care providers also will try to treat the underlying infection and its other complications, Dr. A subgroup will suffer ventricular arrhythmias, and those are more immediately life-threatening, he adds. Atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat that can increase the risk of stroke and heart failure, is common with severe COVID-19, Dr.
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