Chertsey House, St Peter’s Hospital, 11th Apr, 2015
Summary- Paula Beck, CRY’s myheart member, gave a presentation on Cardiac Rehab into Exercise at St Peter’s Hospital, Chertsey, on Saturday, 11th Apr, 2015.
ICDC Surrey held their annual Education Day for Surrey patients with Internal Cardiac Defibrillators* (ICD) implants at St Peter’s Hospital and CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young) myheart member Paula Beck, spoke about the importance of exercise as part of their rehab. Paula is a Personal Trainer / Fitness Instructor who was diagnosed age 30 with Brugada syndrome, a condition found in her family’s gene’s after her brother suddenly died at 31. Families and carers of people with ICDs were also invited to attend.
Paula supported Dr Michael Papadakis, Clinical Lecturer in Cardiology, at St George’s Hospital and cardiologist of the CRY myheart group to which she also belongs. Dr Papadakis spoke about the indications and challenges of having an ICD implanted.
Paula’s presentation was aimed at introducing a positive approach amongst patients and facilitating their return to exercise in a safe and controlled environment. She hopes it will build patients’ confidence and ability to return to safe daily activity or community based exercise and increase their understanding of ICD’s. She also has an ICD and wanted to emphasize to the patients how muscle can be built around the ICD so from personal experience was able to inform them which exercises they should avoid and how to prevent injury or damage to their ICDs and leads.
Paula reported that many people were interested in CRY and our work and took information on our upcoming CRY Bridges Walk, whilst the arrhythmia nurses took CRY leaflets to display for their younger patients.
Her family of 4 siblings and 2 children were screened at St George’s Hospital and both parents as well as her sister were found to have the condition.
Paula’s story is 1 of 10 in conditions in CRY’s myheart booklet.
Read more about an ICD* here.
Watch Paula and myheart member, Joseph Tanner, debate with CRY myheart cardiologist, Dr Michael Papadakis on exercising with an ICD below.
Also watch CRY myheart cardiologist’s video on getting the settings of an ICD right for an individual who does intensive exercise here.
