Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

Strokes - repairing the damage

  • 15-04-2005 2:42pm
    #1
    simu
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,730 ✭✭✭✭


    I was watching ER last night (won't be doing so again - it's one morbid show) and they had a character who had a stroke and was left with the right side of her body paralysed. They managed to get her back to normal again by inserting something into the brain and speaking a load of techno-babble. This is TV, so obviously, medicine works far more smoothly but I was wondering if there was some real-life technology on which this story was based. (I'd always thought recovering from a stroke was a slow process with no guarantee of reaching one's formal level of functionality).


Comments

  • #2
    DrIndy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,461 ✭✭✭DrIndy


    Strokes can be to an extent reversed in the same way as a heart attack is reversed.

    Clot busting drugs are infused that break down the clot and restore the circulation. This is why heart attacks are treated as a very real emergency by the ambulances as if caught early (less than 6 hours ideally from the incident), no damage (or very little) is done.

    In strokes, it is more complex - here the time needed is less than 4 hours. You also have more complexities as although most strokes are from a blood clot, 25% are from a bleed (normally from high blood pressure).

    Thus - although you can reverse a clot, if you give clot busting drugs to someone who has a bleed, it is lethal as the bleed gets incredibly worse.

    Thus - you have to do a CT scan (Cat Scan) on their head first and then if its confirmed its a clot, administer the clot busting drugs.

    This is not done in ireland as most people with a stroke arrive much later to A&E and to do the emergency CT scans realistically, every A&E department must have a dedicated scanner solely for scanning stroke patients to ensure there is no delay.

    Because of cost, it is not done in ireland, it has been brought in for America because there is much more money available.

    If you wait more than about 4 hours, there is the significant chance of a haemorhagic conversion of a thrombotic stroke (where the clot becomes a bleed because of the damage to the blood vessels by a lack of oxygen). If you give a clot busting drug after that time, then you make the bleed much worse and increase the damage.

    In heart attacks, its much more straightforward and there is no absolute limit when clot busting drugs cannot be used (although they become much less effective).


Advertisement