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Danish football player Christian Eriksen probably suffered a sudden cardiac arrest when he collapsed on the pitch. Mats Börjesson, doctor for Sweden’s women’s national football team, says.
– When a player signs together on the field without falling or colliding with an opponent, you can suspect a sudden cardiac arrest. Also because it looks like he is not conscious in pictures, says cardiologist Mats Börjesson, professor of sports physiology and doctor for the Swedish women’s national football team.
Then it is important to be there quickly and examine pulse and respiration and see if the person responds to an appeal, and otherwise start cardiopulmonary resuscitation, according to Börjesson.
– It is important to get started with it within a minute and with the defibrillator within three to five minutes. And that seems to have been done here, he says.
“Very good forecast”
There are defibrillators on hand at the arena and many clubs have them as well.
– If you are young and healthy and your heart is beating, it is a very good prognosis.
– It depends entirely on what the underlying disease is. If it is a myocarditis, it heals.
Often due to heart disease
According to Börjesson, sudden cardiac death in young athletes is often caused by underlying, often unknown and often inherited heart disease.
ECG cardiac screening is recommended for elite athletes from the age of 16. Then you also get questions about whether someone in the family has been affected or if you may have had your own symptoms, for example that you may faint during exertion.
– Since we in Sweden started with cardiac screening and defibrillators, young people who have died of cardiac arrest have been halved between the years 2000–2010, says Börjesson.
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