Chelsea Community Hospital Offers Free Heart Screenings for Athletes

Chelsea Community Hospital is offering a free heart screening to high school and college student athletes throughout Washtenaw County on Saturday.

The heart screening is designed to look for signs of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a serious heart condition that can cause sudden cardiac death in young athletes. This condition affects approximately one in 500 people and usually does not have any physical symptoms.

"We've been doing these screenings since 2003. Our goal is to screen student athletes in high school and college to hopefully prevent the sudden deaths that we all hear about each fall," Dr. Steven Yarrows said.

This screening process takes approximately 30 minutes and includes a review of health history, a blood pressure check and an electrocardiogram test. A physician will then evaluate each student by listening to his or her heart and reviewing their history.

"The health history questions look at whether or not someone blacks out, or has premature heart disease in their family," Yarrows said. "It's pretty simple things based on heart guidelines."

Results of the screening will be given to each student to take home that day. If a problem is detected, the student will be referred to a cardiologist.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a genetic heart disease that causes a thickening of the heart muscle. Undetected, it can lead to sudden death. Young athletes represent the majority of fatalities from the disease because of the added exertion on the heart during exercise. The echocardiogram is the best tool for detection of most heart anomalies, but is not covered by most insurance companies without cause.

The screening will take place at Chelsea Community Hospital in the professional building from 8 a.m. to noon. An appointment is required. Call 1-734-712-5400 or 1-800-231-2211, or register online at www.stjoeshealth.org.