Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Helicopters delivering doctors for stroke patients

Most of us have likely seen helicopters carrying patients to hospitals. Now, there's the idea that flying doctors to stroke victims may improve outcomes:
Transporting doctors to stroke victims could be one viable way of bringing the procedure to more patients, Hui believes. He has been flown to Suburban Hospital to treat three patients this year. Early indications are that it is less expensive and faster than transporting a patient to the doctor.
In a case study of one those incidents printed in the Journal of Neurointerventional Surgery earlier this month, it took Hui 77 minutes to fly to the hospital and complete the procedure. The helicopter took off for the 19-minute flight from Hopkins to Montgomery County at 12:24 p.m. At 1:07 p.m. Hui inserted the catheter into the patient and he completed the surgery by 1:47 p.m.
The full process took about the same amount of time as it would have if Hui had performed the procedure on a patient at Johns Hopkins because doctors at Suburban prepped the patient before Hui arrived to the hospital. It likely would have taken longer to prepare the patient to be transported to Hopkins, let alone travel time and preparation and surgery once there, he said.
Although the study wasn't designed to look at the health outcome of the patient, studies have shown that timing is crucial when treating stroke patients because patients lose brain capacity with each minute they are not treated. Stroke victims do best when they are treated as quickly as possible — ideally in 100 minutes or less.

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Here's another story of 'A Stroke of Faith'

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.
-Psalm 27:14
Mark Moore learned this lesson the hard way. Ten years ago he was hit by back-to-back strokes that could have taken his life. He spent a month in a coma and wake up to find his life forever changed. He re-learned how to walk.

His biggest challenges? One was impatience - recovery doesn’t happen overnight. “It’s incremental … you have to be patient,” he said in an interview earlier this week, coinciding with the release of his new book, “A Stroke of Faith: A Stroke Survivor’s Story of a Second Chance of Living a Life of Significance.” Just to be clear, the book isn’t directly related to this blog with a similar name.

Then again, it’s semi-related because like me, Mark had a stroke at a relatively young age, nearly died and struggled to recover. Also like me, he's finished races during his recovery. A year after his stroke, he finished a 5K (that's 3.1 miles) and went on to run a 10K.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Up to 1 out of 3 of you have had a stroke - perhaps without knowing

Have you ever had a stroke? Perhaps you had one but didn't recognize it. Read this link how 1 in 3 Americans may have had warning stroke without knowing it:
 ... [A]bout 35 percent of Americans experience symptoms of a warning stroke. Yet only about 3 percent get immediate medical attention.
Most adults who had at least one sign of a "mini" stroke - a temporary blockage also known as a transient ischemic attack (TIA) - waited or rested until symptoms had faded instead of calling 911 right away, according to the research from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association (AHA/ASA).
"Ignoring any stroke sign could be a deadly mistake," said ASA chair Dr. Mitch Elkind, in a news release from the organization.

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

May is Stroke Awareness Month: How aware are you?

May is Stroke Awareness Month. It's important to be aware of stroke signs, what to do and how to prevent strokes - and not only in a single month.

Why? A stroke can strike anyone. Strokes do not respect age, social status or wealth. My own stroke happened in May 1998. Outwardly, I was healthy - a longtime distance runner - and under 40.

I received a chart showing basic information about strokes, signs and prevention from Crouse Hospital of Syracuse, N.Y., and wanted to share its good information for this month. It's not an ad as far as I'm concerned, but rather information for you to retain and share.

Click on the chart and check it out.

Wednesday, May 03, 2017

Emoji app - can it help aphasia patients?

Back in the pre-emoji era, one of the tools I used to get my language skills back was an educational toy called GeoSafari. The company still makes more modern versions of this toy.

Fast forward almost 19 years, and here's some new technology to help people with aphasia, a common result of a stroke. Read how Samsung’s new app uses emojis to help people with language disorders communicate:
Created by Samsung Electronics Italia (the company’s Italian subsidiary) and speech therapist Francesca Polini, Wemogee replaces text phrases with emoji combinations and can be used as a messaging app or in face-to-face interactions. It supports English and Italian and will be available for Android on April 28, with an iOS version slated for future release.