REGISTRATION FOR THE SCREENING ON JANUARY 24 IS NOW CLOSED.

REGISTRATION FOR OUR TRI-VALLY SCREENING WILL OPEN ON JANUARY 28

Thank you for being part of our mission to raise awareness of Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) through teen heart screenings.  Our goal is to screen thousands of teens and identify hundreds of heart abnormalities, which put 1–2% of teens screened at risk for SCA.

Our team of volunteer medical doctors, cardiologists, nurses and medical technicians will be helping to screen your teen. The process takes about 60 minutes and you can expect to get the results of the screening that day. We strongly urge you to share the results with your own family doctor so that it becomes a part of your teen’s medical chart.

No screening can identify 100% of the individuals at risk for a sudden cardiac event. We encourage you to continue to have yearly physicals, and discuss any concerns or changes in your health with your primary physician.

On the day of the screening, teens should wear a t-shirt, sweat pants or sport shorts.  Girls should wear a sports bra. Girls will be asked to remove the t-shirt but will keep the sports bra on at all times, and will be screened by female health professionals in an area separate from boys.

We encourage the parents to attend the screening as chaperones.  We want to assure you that students’ confidentiality, privacy and individual modesty will be respected throughout all aspects of the program.

The screening is completely painless and non-invasive (no needles or x-ray exposure) and consists of:

• Review of medical history questionnaire
• EKG Screening (Small patches with a mild adhesive will be placed on the student’s chest, legs and arms. Electrodes are attached to the patches, and the heart’s electrical activity is recorded)
• Some students may also have a limited echocardiogram (ultrasound) of their heart

A simple EKG, when used to screen physically active young persons, can detect certain serious heart conditions that cannot be detected by a stethoscope, including approximately 60% of the abnormalities or “markers” that are associated with Sudden Cardiac Death. Please note that EKG screenings result in approximately 2% of the tests being falsely positive. This may require additional evaluation and testing by your physician. We believe that the benefit of this potentially life-saving screening outweighs this concern.

Teen heart screenings are held throughout the year in Northern California.