Living in fear of collapse
Now 31, he was 23 when he collapsed while training with Kilmacud Crokes in
2004.
“The first time, I was young and I put it down to the stress of exams,” says Marcus, an account manager with Pembroke Communications. “I would have been training with college teams and with my home club and going to the gym in between, so there would have been every few days when I wasn’t active. I was in hospital for over four weeks and, even after all the tests, the doctors still couldn’t be sure what caused my collapse. I learned that the heart is a very complex organ and there’s no right or wrong answer.”
Things were slightly more worrying when he collapsed while training when he was 26. Today, he has a name for his condition: hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
“The main symptoms are a thickening of the wall of the heart which restricts blood flow and the heart’s capacity to pump blood around. I’ve also got a low pulse rate: 17 beats per minute when asleep and 45 beats per minute when resting — the normal is 60/70 beats per minute.”
There has been no repeat of the collapses and Marcus scaled back completely on exercise, though he’s back doing light training now. “I have regular check ups, I keep an eye on what I eat, but I’m not on any medications,” he said, adding that there are no significant heart-related issues in his family.
According to the Irish Heart Foundation, 5,000 people die suddenly from cardiac arrest in Ireland every year and between 70 to 100 of these occur in people under 35 years old. “For every minute a person is collapsed without receiving CPR or defibrillation, their chance of survival decreases by between 7 and 10% per minute,” says Brigid Sinnott, Irish Heart Foundation resuscitation expert. “After five minutes, their chance of survival may be reduced by as much as 50%. But with bystander CPR and the availability of a defibrillator within minutes, their chances can greatly improve.”
Marcus agrees. “If we’re serious about the health of young adults, at least one person in a club should have basic first aid training and there should be a defibrillator in each club. It’s not enough to have freeze sprays and rolls of bandages that nobody ever knows what to do with.”
Many men emigrating to Australia will include backpacking in their experiences Down Under. However, these adventures come hand in hand with major health risks which can potentially ruin your trip of a lifetime. Vaccines, avoiding mosquito bites, what to eat and drink and many other issues need to be covered by your doctor.
According to the Tropical Medical Bureau, you should assume all tap water may be contaminated and use boiled or sealed bottled water at all times for drinking and brushing your teeth. Many trekkers develop various bowel parasites while abroad because of eating unwise foods.
Choose accommodation with mosquito nets over the beds. Treat any bites early and don’t allow them fester. Rabies is a common disease in many regions where you may travel and so avoid contact with all animals. Treat any bite very seriously and get competent medical attention as soon as possible.
For further safety tips, log on to www.tmb.ie
Approximately one in three people with stroke will have aphasia — language and communication problems due to damage to the left side of the brain, such as that caused by stroke.
That’s why the Irish Association of Speech & Language Therapists has launched a public information guide to understanding how stroke affects communication, speech and language skills and how to help people who have been affected by stroke.
The guide provides practical tips for family and friends of people who have had a stroke and aims to inform people about this condition.
Aphasia makes conversation difficult and can be embarrassing and may lead to social isolation and depression. The person with aphasia and his family/close friends should meet with a speech and language therapist for diagnosis, treatment and guidelines on how best to communicate with them.
Log on to www.iaslt.ie for more information.
We are more likely to vote for political candidates with deeper voices
(Source: Duke University, North Carolina, US)
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