Ignorance of symptoms can be fatal

Emergency treatment reduces the risk of disability in cases of stroke. A survey shows that ignorance of delayed symptoms taking charge. Cerebrovascular accident (stroke) strikes each year 150,000 people in our country. It is the leading cause of disability in adults. A drug injected within three hours from onset of symptoms reduces the risk by 40% after a stroke. However, a U.S. survey published last week in the Emergency Medicine Journal reveals that more than half of affected patients with a stroke was unfamiliar with the symptoms, do not understand what was happening. And he preferred to wait until it happens, the fatal error, instead of calling for help. The British government launched a media campaign for the general public to teach the population to identify the warning signs of a stroke. In France, experts are alarmed too late to care. They also believe that campaigns are needed of this type. Stroke is the result where 80% of the restoration of a brain artery by a thrombus (clot) in 20% cases of hemorrhage of U.S. based research artery. In the examination of 400 people hospitalized at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester because of a stroke. Only 42% of patients were included, the first symptoms, he suffered a stroke and asked for help fast enough. The others, thinking he was disturbed expected transition, hoping that the symptoms are not alone.

However, 50% knew that stroke should be treated with urgency, but only 20% of them knew of the existence of a drug that can dissolve clots in the brain. In France, there has been no study of this type, but there are big problems for the recognition of the times by patients, says Professor Pierre Amarenco (center and stroke treatment, Hospital Bichat, Paris). Ignorance is thus a loss of opportunity. Therefore, we must know that there is sometimes blow so brutal, or they may develop within hours. The intensity of the initial disturbance is variable, as is their expression for the area of the brain involved. We must act within three hours of most common symptoms are muscle weakness or paralysis of a body part. In cases of hemiplegia, face, arm and leg on the same side are achieved simultaneously. It may be a loss of sensation: numbness or numbness, speech difficulty, joint discomfort or aphasia (mutism, difficulty finding words). The patient may also have visual disturbances, sudden loss of vision in one eye, half the visual field. Or impaired balance or consciousness that can lead to coma. The first symptom may be a headache, brutal, strange, very intense. The symptoms are grounds for a transitional care urgence.

The information is crucial, But it must be coordinated with the support extra-hospital emergency and an organization within the hospital quickly. In cases of stroke, must act within three hours, we are far away in France for most patients, said Professor Amarenco. Should lead to major campaigns to teach patients to recognize its symptoms. It is parallel to a public health education in schools to teach children to recognize diseases, heart attacks and strokes.

Doctors how help get you what you need if you under went a stroke and then did not get the proper medical help you should have gotten if it was available.