Dr. J. Michael Bennett is a Board Certified Orthopedic Surgeon and a Fellowship Trained Sports Medicine Physician serving patients from Katy, Fort Bend County, Metro Houston and Southeast Texas from offices in Richmond and Sugar Land, TX. Call 281-633-8600 for an appointment.
Our special guest for this show is Dr. Terence Chang, a family practice physician Board Certified in Sports Medicine from Physicians at Sugar Creek in Sugar Land, TX. Bob Lewis, from 1560TheGame, is also participating.
Here’s the transcript of the third portion of the Show:
DR. J. MICHAEL BENNETT: Anyway, it looks like we’ve got a caller here on the line. Nick, welcome to the show, this is Saturdays with Dr. Jay, what can we do for you today?
CALLER: Yes, Dr. Jay, thanks for having me on. I have a son who’s into sports and, like you said, your worst fear as a parent is they drop dead on the football field or the basketball court. What age do you start having these things checked out? You here about some of these things happening as early as junior high. And what about defibrillators? Is this something that schools have to have on site for sporting events?
BENNETT: That’s an excellent question. In regards to ages and things like that, I’ll have Dr. Chang address that. In regards to defibrillators, I think that’s a great question. I think there are some policies that are coming into effect in regards to the defibrillators regarding the schools, whether or not a defibrillator can be held on campus and whether or not these trainers know how to use them, but Dr. Chang can you go ahead and address that question for Nick there?
DR. TERENCE CHANG: First of all, you want to make sure that all kids remain active. I mean we want to actually encourage exercise; these are just some of the things that as parents we worry about but we don’t want this to be the reason why the majority or most kids don’t exercise, you know, because of fear of something going on. You can actually have worse outcomes for kids that just sit on the couch and play video games all day, so to answer your question about which age, usually the physicals start at middle school or high school because they get into more organized sports where the intensity starts to ramp up a little bit. But hopefully, throughout the entire course of the child’s life, you’re going to your well-child checks, and the kids as newborns you see them at birth, two, four, six months, a year, two, three years, but usually what happens is once they start getting into school, about kindergarten, five years, a lot of parents kind of drop off because either the kids are fine or there are no shots that are due but I want to emphasize that it’s very important to at least follow up with your pediatrician or family doc. You’re always getting some sort of check up with the kid because as these kids grow, as their body changes, as their activity level changes, as their metabolism changes, there are certain things that start to reveal themselves that previously weren’t there and sometimes they’re very subtle. And sometimes if you just pay close attention to it, a lot of times you can actually detect issues that weren’t previously there. It’s not so much that someone has missed it beforehand, it’s just that sometimes these diseases or these conditions, these congenital anomalies, evolve. And having someone who is familiar with the kid does help.
As far as the defibrillators are concerned, you’ll see a lot of public places that have these, and I think in Houston we’ve done a pretty good job of getting them into most public places but they’re not everywhere. The defibrillators, as you guys know, are there to shock the heart back into normal rhythm, if it’s quivering like Dr. Jay was talking about, or if it’s in an abnormal rhythm. Not all abnormal rhythms are shock-able. So even when the defibrillator is there it is not a 100 percent insurance policy, so to speak, it’s not a safety net by which we can send someone who truly has a life-threatening heart condition into the field and say, well there’s a defibrillator there, it’ll be okay, we can shock them back. That’s not always true.
If you would like to schedule a sports physical examination for your child with Dr. Bennett, please call our office at 281-633-8600.
