Heart, lung games show value of cardiac, pulmonary rehab
Physicians hope that the attention will encourage more of these patients to be referred to rehabilitation programs.
By Victoria Stagg Elliott, amednews staff. June 26, 2006.
The athletes march in to the gymnasium bursting with pride. Some have oxygen tanks on their backs. Others walk with canes -- periodically raising them with defiance. A flaming torch is passed from one to the next while Olympic-style music plays in the background.
This fanfare marked the kick-off of last month's Second International Heart and Lung Games at Harper College, a community college in suburban Chicago. The event boasted 150 participants, all of whom also are patients in cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation programs located all over the United States and in several European countries. They competed for medals in sports ranging from the energetic, such as volleyball, to others that are less so, such as shuffleboard.
"[Their] efforts represent the triumph of the human spirit," said F. Stuart Sanders, MD, the lead organizer and past president of the Heart and Lung Foundation, the charity arm of the American Assn. of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation.
Dr. Sanders built these international games on the success of similar, state-level games. They are also modeled after the World Transplant Games, which have grown over the past 25 years to include thousands of athletes competing in winter and summer sports. And, like the Transplant Games, which aim to demonstrate the benefits of organ transplantation, the Heart and Lung Games have a message: People with heart and lung disease can live full lives.
[...]
Full text of
American Medical News content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2006 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
SHARE
