Week 1 -- Welcome!

I am a nursing student at the University of Washington--Seattle. I am currently enrolled in a class that uses student blogging to help us practice teaching our patients about a disease. In case you haven't figured it out yet from the title of this blog...I have chosen to write about Pediatric Long QT Syndrome.

Your heart is a muscle. This muscle is told to beat (contract and relax) because an electrical signal travels throughout the heart. We use a test called an EKG (picture #1 below) to look at how strong and fast this electrical signal is stimulating various parts of the heart. Each part of the EKG refers to a different part of the heart’s cycle. In long QT syndrome we see on an EKG that the time between the Q wave and the T wave is too long. See picture #2 below for comparison of long QT waveforms to a normal EKG.

Here's a kid friendly video that shows how an EKG works: EKG Video for Kids

Picture #1 EKG        

(http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/qt)

Picture #2 Comparison of Normal EKG to Long-QT Syndrome EKG

(http://washingtonhra.com/13.html)

Why is this important? This syndrome is found in young athletes and can cause serious cardiac issues during physical exertion--such as at football practice, or during an endurance running event. When the timing of electrical impulses in the heart is misfiring, such as seen with this syndrome, a critical situation such as sudden cardiac death can occur (Gajewski & Saul 2010).

Throughout my weekly blog updates I will discuss how screening of youth athletes can help identify this problem, as well as signs and symptoms, causes, and treatments for this condition.

~Until the next beat~

Sarah



Source: Gajewski, K., & Saul, J. (2010). Sudden cardiac death in children and adolescents (excluding Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). Annual Pediatric Cardiology, 3(2), 107-112. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3017912/