PJ's fit for 68 - doctor

Patterson

It has been no regular check-up for Prime Minister P.J. Patterson in coming up with a clean bill of health after his constitution was called into question.

A battery of tests would more aptly describe his check-up trip.

Electrocardiograms, echocardiograms, neurological consultations, right carotid artery Doppler tests, transcranial Doppler tests, MRIs and MRAs, nuclear stress tests and a colonoscopy are just some of the tests the Prime Minister endured to prove his fitness.

Most of these tests were checking for heart disease and mental wellness and doctors have still found nothing threatening.

The electrocardiogram (ECG) is an electrical recording of the heart and is used in the investigation of heart disease while echocardiogram (EKG) is also a test in which ultrasound is used to examine the heart. Carotid ultrasound (Carotid Doppler) is a simple, painless way of assessing blood flow through your carotid arteries. The Transcranial Doppler (TCD) is a relatively new ultrasound technology used for evaluation of blood circulation in the brain.

The Prime Minister needed to test the durability of his heart after experiencing two fainting spells in public in 1993 and 2001. Despite the flurried reaction to talk that the 68-year-old Prime Minister Patterson might be less than fit to handle the rigours of the political campaign, the experts suggest that there is nothing to worry about.

Dr. Orville Nembhard, an independent family physician who has been in the practice for more than the past 20 years, explained to The Sunday Gleaner yesterday that based on the reports from Mr. Patterson's personal physician, Dr. K. Orrin Barrow, and other international experts who examined Mr. Patterson since 1993, the Prime Minister's health is a "non-issue".

"There isn't anything in it (the medical report) that would make anybody alarmed," said Dr. Nembhard. "If I get to his age, I would be happy to have those reports."

Medical experts here and in the United States all concurred on examination of Mr. Patterson and a review of his medical and family history that the fainting spells he experienced were due to a medical condition called vasovagal syncope. It is a disorder of the parasympathetic nervous system.

Most people who suffer from the disorder will find, as was the case of Mr. Patterson, that they don't need to be doing anything demanding to have a sudden drop in the heart rate and blood pressure that causes unconsciousness.

According to Dr. Barrow's report too, Mr. Patterson also began anti-hypertensive therapy in 2000 because of findings in May of that year of septal hypertrophy for which he has been treated. Septal hypertrophy is a thickening of the wall between the two chambers of the heart. Dr. Barrow's conclusion after seeing Mr. Patterson on September 24, 2002 is "there is currently no basis for curtailing any of his activities on grounds of ill health."