Catholic Explorer

Volunteers for Young Hearts For Life screen a high school student for heart problems Feb. 21 at Glenbard North High School in Carol Stream.

CAROL STREAM— Since 1963 the U.S. Congress has proclaimed February as American Heart Month. It has become a time when public awareness is increased about the nation’s No.1 killer—cardiovascular diseases. However, there is one organization that is working year round to promote heart health—Midwest Heart Foundation in Lombard.

On Feb. 21, the foundation’s efforts were visible during a Young Hearts For Life cardiac screening at Glenbard North High School in Carol Stream. It is the latest stop in the traveling program that has visited Benet Academy in Lisle and Montini Catholic High School in Lombard. Brian Waterman, assistant principal-operations of the Carol Stream school, said there was very little doubt about conducting the program at the school. The health benefits outweigh the negatives. He said, “It was kind of an easy question to answer.”

Volunteers swarmed the Glenbard North gymnasium and attached rooms sporting yellow and black T-shirts with a Superman logo on the front. The 100-plus “Super” volunteers were providing free three-minute EKGs to 1,500 teenagers; the procedure screens for certain impulse patterns associated with abnormalities that could cause sudden death.

Jill Walenga, a retired nurse from Hanover Park, volunteered for the two-day event. She said she wished the schools had similar programs while her son, Jake Brooks, was working toward earning baseball scholarships and, eventually, a professional career in the sport.

Seated in the midst of the organized activity was Dr. Joseph Marek, clinical cardiologist with Midwest Heart Specialists. The father of four children carefully examined EKG readings as a quality control volunteer handed them to him. Marek leads the team of volunteers and a few staff members in traveling to various locations to screen high school students. Since 2006, they have screened over 15,000 teenagers and identified 250 abnormal EKG readings, according to Marek. He said they started the process because “We were tired of seeing in news reports of these young people dying.”

Since there is no obligation on the part of the students and their families to follow-up with the foundation, there are no true statistics on results from tests performed by the family physicians after the initial screenings, explained Marek, who has been a cardiologist for 27 years. However, the foundation has received gratitude from at least one teen-age boy that was diagnosed with Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. HCM is a genetic abnormality and it is the most common cause of sudden death in young adults. Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, a heart rhythm problem, was diagnosed with 12 students referred to their own family physicians by the foundation. Dr. Marek said he knew of two students diagnosed with WPW that had taken measures to correct the abnormality.

At first, the foundation focused its efforts on DuPage County but it is now looking to expand its services in nearby counties, said Jennifer Pooley, Young Hearts For Life program manager. Discussions are under way for future screenings in Cook and Winnebago counties. He said, “We’d like to make this a model for the whole state.”

More information is available at www.midwestheart.org.