Cardio-respiratory pre-participation screening of competitive athletes

ABSTRACT

Substantially, it was to highlight how valuable is the routine use of ECG, echocardiography and spirometry among the pre-participation routine examinations for the athletes to differentiate between normal physiological and the pathological changes that could face down the performance of the athletes during competitions or even more might endanger their lives. The study was conducted among some junior athletes who were attending at Sports Medicine center in Madinat Nasr for regular assessment of their physical fitness. The study sample included 120 junior athletes from the national team of football [< 17 years and < 19 years]. Another 95 non- athletic healthy individuals from the school for talented students were selected to represent the control group. They were classified into two groups, each one was matching with a corresponding athletic group in age. Age, body weight, height and body mass index were recorded. Ergometric test with Spirometry, ECG and echocardiography were applied for all the participants. Both groups were matching with their corresponding controls concerning age and height, while the weight and body mass index were found to be statistically significantly higher among their corresponding controls. It was proved in our study that athletes do have statistically significantly lower resting heart and maximum heart rates with higher VO2 max comparing with the non athletes. The anaerobic threshold values were statistically significantly lower among the athletes that were found to be achieved after prolonged times of performance if compared with the control groups. All the spirometric parameters were statistically significantly higher among the athletes. EGG and echocardiography, revealed a normal and accepted physiological changes that can be acquired due to prolonged training. Based on the results of the study, it's deemed that spirometry, ECG, and echocardiography must be tabled among the pre-participation routine examinations of the athletes as a sensible approach to differentiate the physiological changes from the pathological ones, which subsequently can mitigate the usual raised concern of sudden death of athletes during prolonged competitions