Sudden Cardiac Death (cont.)
What about sudden cardiac arrest in the young?
In younger people, sudden death is a rare event, but since it often
involves
people involved in athletics, cases are often reported in the press. The most
common cause is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (hypertrophy=to grow abnormally
large + cardio=heart + myopathy = diseased muscle). This disease is often
hereditary, and the walls of the ventricle are larger than they should be. This
makes the pumping chamber of the heart smaller, and the heart has to work harder
to pump blood out of the heart. As well, the thickened muscle narrows the space
for the blood to flow through the aortic valve and to the rest of the body.
During exercise, this decreased blood flow can irritate the heart muscle itself
and cause ventricular fibrillation, collapse, and sudden death.
Anomalous coronary arteries can also cause sudden death in the young. The
heart is a muscle itself, and like any muscle, it needs blood supply to provide
oxygen for it to work. Normally, the coronary arteries lie on the surface of the
heart. Anomalous arteries dive into the heart muscle itself and may be occluded
when the heart muscle that surrounds the abnormally placed artery squeezes
aggressively, as with exercise, shutting off blood supply to part of the heart.
This irritates the electrical system and can cause ventricular fibrillation and
sudden death.
The pre-participation athletic physical examination is a useful tool to
screen children and
adolescents for their risk of sudden cardiac arrest.
Commotio cordis is a situation in which the heart stops when the chest is hit
by an object. News stories occasionally report of baseball players who are hit
in the chest by a ball and collapse because their heart stops beating. The heart
sits behind the breastbone, and the electrical system can be short circuited
when a direct blow is sustained.
Next: What are the symptoms of sudden cardiac arrest? »
- Echocardiogram - Information on Echocardiogram including why you would need one, the types of echocardiograms, how to prepare and what to expect.
- Congestive Heart Failure - Read about congestive heart failure symptoms like fatigue, abdomen, leg and ankle swelling, shortness of breath, sleeplessness, increased urination, nausea, abdominal pain, and decreased appetite.
- Electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) - Read about the Electrocardiogram (ECG, EKG) procedure used to reflect underlying heart conditions such as agnina, occurance of a prior heart attack or of an evolving heart attack, and more.
Latest Medical News
Heart RSS