POTS: Recognise It, Screen It, Refer It. A Clinical Workshop

One hour with Dr Jessica Povall on recognising POTS, the screening tools that work, and when to refer. Often missed as anxiety. POTS, or Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, is a common form of orthostatic intolerance that is frequently missed in primary and allied health settings. Patients typically present with palpitations, light-headedness on standing, fatigue, exercise intolerance and cognitive fog, often alongside unremarkable standard investigations. As a result the presentation is regularly misattributed to anxiety, panic disorder or deconditioning, and diagnosis is delayed by months or years. This 60 minute workshop covers how to recognise POTS in a standard consult, how to screen for it in your own rooms, how to triage what you are seeing, and when and where to refer. What we'll cover • The core presentation and the diagnostic criterion: a sustained heart rate rise of at least 30 beats per minute within ten minutes of standing, in the absence of orthostatic hypotension • Common misattributions, including anxiety, panic disorder, chronic fatigue and simple deconditioning, and how to distinguish them • In-clinic screening you can perform without a tilt table, including the active stand and ten minute stand tests • Associated presentations and comorbidities worth flagging, including post-viral onset and joint hypermobility • Triage and red flags: who warrants cardiology input, and who can be managed conservatively • An overview of management options and referral pathways across the multidisciplinary team Who this is for • GPs • Cardiologists • Exercise physiologists • Physiotherapists • Personal trainers working with clinical populations • Practitioners in endocrinology, women's health and paediatrics • Any clinician looking to build referral pathways around this presentation