A preseason cardiorespiratory profile of dancers in nine professional ballet and modern companies.

While studies have investigated the physical demands of dance in terms of cardiorespiratory fitness, there are no recent comparisons of cardiorespiratory response to exercise among professional dancers of different genres. Our purpose was to: 1. develop a cardiorespiratory profile of professional dancers; 2.

Integrating research into clinical practice: development of an echocardiography research unit.

Introducing a research program into an echocardiography clinical practice can pose many challenges. Some initial factors to consider are the possible effects on the current clinical schedule and the equipment and personnel resources required to support the research projects. More importantly, how can an organization successfully complete reliable and accurate research projects? Here, we describe our experience with establishing an echocardiography research center within our clinical echocardiography practice.

Comparison of cardiac structural and functional changes in obese otherwise healthy adults with versus without obstructive sleep apnea.

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and obesity have been linked to systolic and diastolic dysfunction of the left ventricle. Right ventricular function is poorly understood in the 2 clinical conditions. Data from this study show that otherwise healthy obese patients with OSA had increased an left atrial volume index compared with similarly obese patients without OSA (16.

Diastolic function: a sonographer's approach to the essential echocardiographic measurements of left ventricular diastolic function.

Noninvasive assessment of left ventricular filling pressures by echocardiography has been validated by invasive hemodynamic studies and correlated with clinical findings. A comprehensive echocardiographic examination based on the referral diagnosis and patient symptomatology routinely includes efforts to measure specific parameters of left ventricular diastolic function. We provide a step-by-step approach to goal-directed echocardiographic assessment of diastolic function.