UCC Students Getting to the Heart Of It
Over 100 of University College Cork’s top athletes will be undergoing potentially lifesaving cardiac screening on Dec 6th & 12th. The University’s Clubs Executive – the joint student and staff body – funded cardiac screening for all students on a sports scholarship. Countries like Italy, where anyone who plays organised sport has to get cardiac screening done has reduced SADS deaths in Italy by 89% over the last 25 years.The scheme was brought in last year following a study conducted by UCC’s Department of Rheumatology, Sports and Exercise Medicine which highlighted the role cardiac screening can play in reducing rates of sudden cardiac death among athletes. Brian Phelan Clubs Executive President explained how important it was to continue this project after seeing ’seeing the in the news every week there seems to be another young athlete suffering an attack, we have over 20,000 students here and at least 5,500 of those engage in sport & physical activity within UCC on a weekly basis and many more partake in sport with there own local sports clubs’’. Last year’s testing resulted in 20% of those tested which really justified the rollout out of the programme.The screening will be carried out by the UCC Student Health centre, which has recently acquired the equipment to carry out the testing. Dr Michael Byrne explains that each participant is required to fill out a personal and family history questionnaire, to undergo a physical examination and an electrocardiogram. The participant’s medical data and ECG will be reviewed and reported by a consultant cardiologist. The test is painless and only takes about twenty mins. While this programme is currently running for scholarship athletes however the long term plan is to open out the service to the whole student population. In the new year a series of talks are planned covering serious sporting and health related issues one of which will focus on cardiac deaths.