New sign of stroke. Share and save lives.

[elleng]

(from FB friend)

Stroke has a new indicator! They say if you ...forward this to ten people, you stand a chance of saving one life. Will you send this along? Blood Clots/Stroke - They Now Have a Fourth Indicator, the Tongue:

During a BBQ, a woman stumbled and took a little fall - she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics) ...she said she had just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes.

They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food. While she appeared a bit shaken up, Jane went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening.

Jane's husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital - (at 6:00 PM Jane passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Jane would be with us today. Some don't die. They end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.

It only takes a minute to read this.

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke...totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE

Thank God for the sense to remember the '3' steps, STR. Read and

Learn!

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.

Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

S *Ask the individual to SMILE.

T *Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A

SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently)
(i.e. Chicken Soup)

R *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.

If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call emergency number immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

New Sign of a Stroke -------- Stick out Your Tongue

NOTE: Another 'sign' of a stroke is this: Ask the person to 'stick' out his tongue. If the tongue is

'crooked', if it goes to one side or the other that is also an indication of a stroke.

A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to 10 people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved.

[dipsydoodle]

1. That's an email which circulated in 2006 by adding to an earleir email.

and may not necessarily be good advice as opposed to the original three signs.

http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/stroke.asp

[elleng]

2. snopes says may still be good advice

but how crooked is the tongue may be open to interpretation, and easier for people to recall the first 3 'tests,' rather than adding a third.

[alfredo]

3. How many stuck out their tongue when reading this.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Lol! ......you do know people.

I fess up.

[Helen Borg]

5. I did!

Checks out. :|

[BlueJazz]

6. Damn it ! You looked !

[elleng]

12. GUESS!!!

[Nay]

16. Shit, I did! Monkey read, monkey do, I guess!

[alfredo]

18. I'm glad it didn't say "crap your pants."

[RC]

7. The very fact that it says to "forward this to ten people,..." will cause me to click on "Delete".

No matter what it says. Everything after that is suspect.

[awoke_in_2003]

10. That and the fact...

That it went clear around the block before getting to the point.

[live love laugh]

17. What you said... nt

[libodem]

8. Hey, how am I doing

[Little Star]

9. I had a Ischemic Stroke and my only symptom was....

my left foot felt like it had fallen asleep and it stayed that way, still is that way. They had no clue what was wrong with me and for 2 days in the hospital, after more than one day at home, I remained untreated while they did a CAT scan & MRI (took 2 days for testing & results). By the time they figured it out my whole left side was affected and remains that way. Only my foot was effected until right before I was released then bam right when they were doing my release paperwork.

I had no other symptoms. None. Still don't. But it is like carrying around the dead weight of the left of my body.

I consider myself very lucky to only have to live with what I have to. It could have been much, much worse. But if the hospital had treated me sooner it wouldn't have spread to my whole left side, sigh. I did languish in the hospital bed for 90% of my time there with no urgency or attention from the doctors.

Oh well, can't undo what is done, sigh.

[OldRedneck]

13. Your story is very, very sad

I am an EMT who is often the first person on the scene in a county where over 30 percent of our people are 65 and older, I live in fear of doing exactly what was done to you.

In addition to the Cincinnati Stroke Scale, another test I run on all my patients . . . unless their problem is something obvious . . . is this. I put two of my fingers in the palm of the patient's hand and tell them to squeeze as hard as they can. I do this to first one hand then the other. They should squeeze evenly. Then, I grab the patient's toes and push their foot upward while telling them to push down, resisting my push. They should be able to push back evenly. If either of these tests fails, that is, if one hand or one foot is weaker than the other, I initiate stroke protocol and put the patient on a helicopter to our nearest stroke center, 30 minutes flight time away.

In five years, I have had three patients who did fine on the Cincinnati Scale but who showed obvious weakness in one hand or one foot. Every one them was helicoptered out and all three were found by CT scan to be in early stages of ischemic stroke.

I am so very sorry for your experience. I hope you tell others what happened to you and educate them on the early signs of a stroke.

[Little Star]

15. Thanks. I do tell everyone who will listen about...

my only symptom being what feels like a foot going to sleep but won't go away.

I don't think that symptom happens to many people and is not anything that most professionals have seen or heard about. Which is why they treated me in a non-emergency way, imho. They were puzzled about what the heck was wrong with me and so was I.

My Dr. always checks now to see if I can push good and hard with my hands and feet. I can. I just have this kind of dead weight with a foot falling asleep tingling feeling all down my left side. Weird. But it obviously does happen sometimes.

Thank you for the job you do. With people like you helping to pass on my symptoms to other professionals maybe someone else will be helped quicker than I was.

[OldRedneck]

11. I'm an Advanced Life Support - Cardiac EMT . . . .

The original post is not entirely incorrect and those who dismiss it do so at their own peril and the possible peril of others.

There is a simple three-step test that can identify a stroke: The Cincinnati Pre-Hospital Stroke Scale. Here it is, copied from Wikipedia, which is an excellent description of the test. Anyone can do this.

-- quote

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_Prehospital_Stroke_Scale

The Cincinnati Prehospital Stroke Scale is a system used to diagnose the presence of a stroke in a patient. It tests three signs for abnormal findings which may indicate that the patient is having a stroke. If any one of the three tests shows abnormal findings, the patient may be having a stroke and should be transported to a hospital as soon as possible.

Facial droop: Have the person smile or show his or her teeth. If one side doesn't move as well as the other so it seems to droop, that could be sign of a stroke.
Normal: Both sides of face move equally
Abnormal: One side of face does not move as well as the other (or at all)

Arm drift: Have the person close his or her eyes and hold his or her arms straight out in front for about 10 seconds. If one arm does not move, or one arm winds up drifting down more than the other, that could be a sign of a stroke.
Normal: Both arms move equally or not at all.
Abnormal: One arm does not move, or one arm drifts down compared with the other side.

Speech: Have the person say, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks," or some other simple, familiar saying. If the person slurs the words, gets some words wrong, or is unable to speak, that could be sign of stroke.
Normal: Patient uses correct words with no slurring
Abnormal: Slurred or inappropriate words or mute

Patients with 1 of these 3 findings as a new event have a 72% probability of an ischemic stroke. If all 3 findings are present the probability of an acute stroke is more than 85%

-- end quote

Go to this site:
http://www.strokeassociation.org/idc/groups/stroke-public/@wcm/@hcm/@sta/documents/downloadable/ucm_454087.pdf
Print the card, memorize it.

The part about the tongue may or may not be useful. Facial droop and slurred speech are caused by inability to control certain muscles and those same muscle groups certainly could cause the tongue to be unmanageable.

Time is of the essence in identifying and treating a stroke. There's a one-to-three-hour window that we call the Golden Hour. If you get to a stroke center within 1-3 hours of onset, the docs can reverse all, most, or some of the effects of the stroke -- not immediately -- you'll have a lot of therapy but they can do marvelous things to reverse the effects of a stroke. I have two friends both of whom were in stroke treatment centers within two hours of onset. They both suffered strokes about 24 months ago. One of them shows no signs of ever having had a stroke, the other still has weakness in one arm but is on his way to regain full use . . . both are in their late 60's.

Remember: There are two types of stroke.
-- ISCHEMIC, which is caused by a blockage of blood flow to the brain; 85 - 90 percent of strokes are ischemic.
http://www.strokecenter.org/patients/about-stroke/ischemic-stroke/
-- HEMORRHAGIC, which is caused by a burst blood vessel in the brain (it's a bit more complicated but that's the short version); these account for 10 - 15 percent of strokes. http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/hemorrhagic-stroke

Hemorrhagic strokes can be, and often are, fatal or permanently debilitating mainly because treatment requires invasive procedures to stop the bleeding inside the skull and reduce pressure on the brain. That is, surgery by a neurosurgeon usually is required, it must be started quickly, and most people don't have strokes in a neurosurgeon's operating room.

Ischemic strokes can be treated with thrombolitic drugs . . . clot-busters, which can be administered in emergency rooms before transport to a stroke center.

If you want to, copy the Wikipedia article and the stroke warning signs card I have listed above and send them to everyone you know. Or not. Your life, your choice.

[elleng]

14. Thanks, OldRedneck.