American College of Sports Medicine Roundtable on exertional heat stroke--return to duty/return to play: conference proceedings

Abstract

On October 22-23, 2008, an ACSM Roundtable was convened at the Uniformed Services University (Bethesda, MD) to discuss return-to-play or return-to-duty for people who have experienced exertional heat illness (EHI) and to develop consensus-based recommendations. The conference assembled experts from the civilian sports medicine community and the Department of Defense to discuss relevant EHI issues, such as potential long-term consequences, the concept of thermotolerance, and the role of thermal tolerance testing in return-to-play decisions. Although the group was unable to move forward with new consensus recommendations, they clearly documented critical clinical concerns and scientific questions, including the following: 1) no uniform core definitions of EHI; 2) limited validated criteria to assess recovery from exertional heat stroke (EHS); and 3) inadequate ability to predict who may be predisposed to a subsequent heat injury after EHS. Areas of potential future research are identified.