EKG screening helpful in detecting unsuspected heart problem in children

I read with great sadness the comments made by Dr. Natacha Sochat, medical director for the Nashua Public Health Department, and Dr. Carl Levick, an adult cardiologist, in The Telegraph’s article on July 5 titled, “Doctors question value of EKG tests,” by Hattie Bernstein.

The article was in regards to the value of the heart screenings for young people that are being provided by HeartScreen America.

Statements such as theirs readily perpetuate more apathy in the public and medical communities, potentially leading to the sudden cardiac death of thousands more young people each year from unidentified heart problems.

Most likely, many of these heart problems could be detected with a simple electrocardiogram read by a cardiologist. Nothing is 100 percent – neither mammograms, X-rays, blood pressure screenings, nor most tests that are used to screen any health problems. They are all just that – screening – a chance for early detection!

Approximately 85 percent of the heart problems that can cause sudden cardiac death in young people are identifiable on an electrocardiogram, according to experts. The issue is not that sudden cardiac death in young people is so rare, the issue is that it is under reported; we do need to worry, and we do need to do something!

Innocent children are dying from undetected heart problems that, by and large, can be detected and treated! With treatment, these young people can live long, healthy and productive lives!

I know personally because my beloved Janna, my 15-year-old, seemingly healthy daughter, died in her sleep of a cardiac arrest from undetected Long QT Syndrome, an electrical heart problem.

We had no family history of such. Her death could have been prevented had an electrocardiogram been done and read by a pediatric cardiologist, and her heart problem then treated.

We have since discovered two teenage cousins in the family who also have LQTS and they are now being treated with medication.

The loss of a child is an insurmountable pain that scars a parent forever! If you have children, you can perhaps imagine the pain, intensified more so by knowing that your child’s death could have been prevented!

By not screening children’s hearts for electrical and structural problems, we are declaring that their young lives are not worth saving and, in essence, we are handing thousands of children every year a death sentence. Why neglect a population of innocent young people with heart problems?

We parents are being told by our pediatricians that our children are healthy, but no one can tell if a heart is healthy just by listening with a stethoscope! Electrical problems cannot be heard with a stethoscope, and cardiomyopathies, the number one cause of sudden cardiac death in young people in the United States, cannot be heard with just a stethoscope!

In 2003, I founded Take It To Heart (www.TakeItToHeart.org,) a program designed to help prevent sudden cardiac death in young people.

We provide educational programs and heart screenings, which include an electrocardiogram read by a cardiologist. We have been very successful in identifying previously undetected heart problems in young people that could have otherwise, if left undetected, potentially led to tragic circumstances.

I am also a member of Parent Heart Watch, www.parentheartwatch.org, a national organization of parents across the country who have lost a child to sudden cardiac arrest or who have an at-risk child. We are all working very hard to help prevent sudden cardiac death in all young people.

There is no national data bank collecting data on the number of young people who die each year from cardiac arrest and, unfortunately, it is not recognized for the national crisis that it is!

Thousands of seemingly healthy young people are dying every year in the United States from unidentified heart problems. The Heart Rhythm Society estimates that 14,000 young people die every year from sudden cardiac arrest!

Please review this issue carefully before publishing statements that will help perpetuate this travesty in our medical system. Children need their hearts screened with an electrocardiogram that is read by a cardiologist.

Parents deserve the right to be educated on this issue and to realize that they have an option to take preventive measures. Not to do so is playing Russian roulette with children’s lives!

Do you really know if your child’s heart is healthy? Isn’t your child’s life worth a price of less than $50?

I know that all of us parents who have lost a child to sudden cardiac arrest would have gladly paid anything to know what we now know. An inexpensive, simple, painless, non-invasive ECG read by a cardiologist is a very small price to pay for the enormous amount of knowledge gained!

Please relay to Dr. Sochat and Dr. Levick that, as the saying goes, “If you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem.”

I am personally very grateful that HeartScreen America exists! It is performing an extremely valuable service for our children and its potential to save young lives was grossly underestimated!

Source:www.nashuatelegraph.com