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More Health Tests Needed
by Paul on 10/16/08 at 08:01 AM ET
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from Tony Gallagher of the Vancouver Province,
The NHL medical examination at the outset of the season is pretty thorough, but there is one more step the league could take to help weed out some of these ticking time bomb cases.
Teams could introduce a 24-hour halter heart monitor test for their players and even take them through a tough skate with no hitting during the test to help detect lapses in heart function, either when the athlete is sitting with a low resting heart rate or when he’s driving his rate through the roof playing the game. This test has resulted in many a fine young man on the street being diagnosed with problems before they reach any kind of critical stage.
Obviously, players would not be thrilled about another new test, particularly when they find they must wear electrodes all over their body and then walk around and sleep at night with a small pack about the size of an iPod slung over their shoulder.
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A holter monitor is a portable heart monitor that you wear in everyday use to see what type of heart rhythm occurs. Usually there is also a button on it, that you would push if you feel like you are experiencing a cardiac irregularity. When the two days are up, you bring it back to your doctor, who hooks it up to a machine that prints out rhythm strips like an electrocardiograph does. You would go about your regular business during the day- the only restriction is that you cannot take a shower or bath, or get it wet in any way. You would sleep with it on, and when your doctor evaluates the strips when the test is over, this will tell him/her if you have any abnormalities in your cardiac rhythm.
Posted by Matt from Vancouver on 10/16/08 at 01:03 PM ET
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...especially if it’s going to threaten their careers. I understand that this is a health issue, but this also becomes a labour issue if teams are going to be able to use it in considering player contracts, etc., which wouldn’t be unprecedented. In the NBA, Ronny Turiaf had his contract with the Lakers voided after they discovered an enlarged aortic root.
As such, I wouldn’t be surprised if this were an issue of contention for the NHLPA.
If the NHLPA decides that it wants to implement such a test, with the results disclosable only to the players themselves, then that would be another story. The players would be able to do what they wanted with that information - provide it to their team’s training staff, use it to weigh a retirement decision, or just keep it secret and play with the risks (players have shown they’re willing to accept risks - most go without a visor).
Posted by PRC. on 10/16/08 at 09:45 AM ET