For sports, be heart aware for young athletes’ health

MATT LACZKO | THE CHARLOTTE POST

As school sports season cranks up, parents and athletics staff should be aware of the physical rigor of practice and games on the cardiovascular system of young athletes.

In May, Bryson Blanton, a 13-year-old from Rowan County, collapsed from sudden cardiac arrest during a baseball game in Charlotte while rounding second base. 

An off-duty Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer performed life-saving CPR. Paramedics restored his heartbeat using an automated external defibrillator. 

Caden Sorrell, a 13-year-old from Greensboro, died earlier this month after running at the beginning of football practice. 

With high school sports in full swing, it is important to take control of cardiovascular health.

For parents with children that play sports, the first step is to see a pediatrician for a sports physical prior to participating in whatever sport the child plays. There is a growing conversation about whether additional screenings like electrocardiograms should become routine. Nationally, healthcare providers and school policymakers continue to discuss the role of cardiac screening in identifying certain heart conditions in young athletes. 

An EKG, for instance, is a quick and painless test that records the heart’s electrical activity. 

“EKGs have a lot of false positives and false negatives,” said Dr. Shyla Sachdev, assistant medical director for sports cardiology at Novant Health. “It’s sort of like we’re missing when we do it. We get a lot of positives that are fine because athletes in general have slower heart rates. That shows up on an EKG – it alerts someone that maybe it’s an abnormal EKG. Then they end up going somewhere and getting an ultrasound or stress test or whatever, so it’s extra, extra money. 

“Cardiac MRI – that’s a popular one for athletes that costs a lot of money – and then it misses the big one. The number one scary thing, especially in black athletes, is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.”
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a genetic heart condition where the heart muscle becomes abnormally thick and stiff, making it harder to pump blood effectively. While this condition hasn’t been found to be more common in Black people, they will often experience more severe disease progression. 

“The problem is that hypertrophic cardiomyopathy does affect them but the other thing is that we're also dealing we're not sure why but more black athletes die than other groups,” Sachdev said, “and it could be is it hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or is it that we're just not paying attention to these groups?”

Sachdev said in physically active children in general are less likely to die from such complications, but it is important to listen to your body if things feel abnormal. 

“I would tell parents to pay attention if your kid notices any symptoms with exertion,” she said. “If they come back and they say they were running at recess, or they were playing basketball with their friends, or soccer, and they noticed that they are lightheaded or dizzy. ‘I’m having chest pain. I’m short of breath. I’ve passed out.’ … These are symptoms that parents could be on more alert for. 

“I just trust my instinct and trust my kid. If they tell me that it is weird and like it just feels off, that's when I would just say, ‘OK, this is probably off.’ But certainly, if they come in with chest pain, lightheadedness, that doesn't feel like it's just dehydration or you're not sure, shortness of breath, fatigue, those kinds of things, I’d say, definitely alert someone. And then some of it is just paying attention to things like your gut instinct, your family history, and if it’s happening more than one time.”

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