Teenagers

Dr Naqvi comments “Teenagers can develop all types of heart conditions. A teenager often responds to potential cardiac problems differently to younger children and to adults. They may have a better more recent understanding of the basic structure of their heart than their parents, due to studying it at school in KS3 science and again in biology GCSE. Before their parents are even aware their teenager may have a problem, there is a significant likelihood that the teenager has already “googled “their symptoms. The huge amount of health information available on the internet can unfortunately be potentially very frightening for young people. It is important to stress to teenagers that the majority of information on the web about heart problems is relevant for much older people (usually the elderly) and genuine serious heart problems (such as heart attacks and heart failure failure) are very unusual in teenagers. The commonest conditions affecting teenagers are palpitations , chest pain and fainting. “These are discussed elsewhere on this site.

If your teenager is coming for a cardiac assessment it is likely they will have some basic investigations such as an ECG , echocardiogram and possibly an exercise test.