SE Academic Review 2023

20 ST EDWARD’S, OXFORD

3 .

The purpose of this essay is to explore what is meant by cardiovascular diseases and to consider several case studies from sport. It is an aspect of society where progress needs to be made because of the serious consequences of letting such conditions go unnoticed. To understand what could be done, I will briefly look at the Italian model, which is a leading example of cardiac screening within sport, to provide evidence to support my argument that more could be done in the UK to limit the impact of congenital and cardiovascular diseases. I will also use several other resources including articles from the NHS and sport case studies. Throughout my essay I will argue that not enough screening is being done, leading to people dying prematurely from undetected heart diseases or conditions. What more could be done to limit the impact of congenital and cardiovascular diseases in the UK? By Harry Trowbridge

Introduction

Throughout my essay I will analyse what is currently being done in the UK to reduce cardiac deaths and other complications. I will use several sources from the NHS and British Heart Foundation (BHF) when I investigate different conditions, treatments and preventions. Alarmingly, around 160,000 people in the UK alone die of cardiovascular diseases each year, which has been the leading cause of death in the UK for men and women (Office for National Statistics, 2021).

Following a literature review I will discuss what is meant by cardiovascular heart disease, commonly referred to as CVD and congenital heart disease (CHD). CVD is the name for a group of disorders of heart and blood vessels. There are many different types of CVD, which I will briefly discuss later in my essay, however my focus is on congenital heart disease. CHD is a defect that develops in the child’s heart while they are in the womb. The defect can affect many areas of the heart including the chambers, blood vessels and the aorta (Beckerman, 2019).