{"id":74686,"date":"2016-10-29T20:05:42","date_gmt":"2016-10-30T00:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=74686"},"modified":"2016-10-29T20:05:42","modified_gmt":"2016-10-30T00:05:42","slug":"learning-fast-response-to-stroke-urged-for-world-stroke-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=74686","title":{"rendered":"Learning \u2018FAST\u2019 response to stroke urged for\u00a0World Stroke Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?attachment_id=72621\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-72621\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-72621\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/american-heart.jpg?resize=219%2C144\" alt=\"american heart stroke\" width=\"219\" height=\"144\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/american-heart.jpg?w=219&amp;ssl=1 219w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/american-heart.jpg?resize=150%2C99&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 219px) 100vw, 219px\" \/><\/a>When punch dribbled out of the side of Dan Merritt\u2019s mouth during a Halloween\u00a0celebration at his daughter\u2019s house, his wife quickly recognized stroke signs and drove him to\u00a0the hospital.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn hindsight, we did the right thing, the wrong way,\u201d Barbara Merritt said. \u201cWe should have\u00a0called 911 right away. Fortunately, Dan\u2019s story turned out okay, but we know we got incredibly\u00a0lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lucky, because people who don\u2019t go to the hospital via EMS reduce the odds of getting the best treatment for stroke, according to recent American Heart Association\/American Stroke\u00a0Association Get With The Guidelines-Stroke data.<\/p>\n<p>For World Stroke Day on Oct. 29, the American Stroke Association will join others across the\u00a0world to <!--more-->encourage people to save lives by responding promptly to stroke \u2014 the second leading\u00a0cause of death worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a healthcare professional and as a stroke survivor myself, I can tell you that getting help\u00a0quickly for stroke is more important than anything else you may be doing or have planned,\u201d said\u00a0Teri Ackerson, neuroscience program coordinator at Saint Luke\u2019s Health System in Kansas City,\u00a0Missouri and American Heart Association\/American Stroke Association volunteer. \u201cWhether you\u00a0are the one experiencing symptoms or you see them in someone else, remember that stroke\u00a0won\u2019t wait, and neither should you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>People reported varying reasons for delaying stroke treatment in an informal survey of American\u00a0Stroke Association website visitors:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Several hoped symptoms would resolve on their own.<\/li>\n<li>Many had other priorities, including finishing work, meeting up with family or even a\u00a0scheduled hair appointment.<\/li>\n<li>Some expressed an outdated, fatalistic view of the disease.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cLooking back, the right response is clear, but in the moment, doubt and denial are natural\u00a0responses to stroke signs and can lead to bad decisions,\u201d Ackerson said. \u201cThe heart-breaking\u00a0thing is that for many of these patients, we might have been able to decrease disability if they\u00a0would have gotten to us sooner and by ambulance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Many ischemic strokes, which account for 87 percent of all strokes and are caused by an\u00a0obstruction of blood flow to the brain, can be treated with the clot-busting medication tissue\u00a0plasminogen activator (IV r-tPA\/alteplase) and a stent retriever device that removes the clot.<\/p>\n<p>Research has shown that 91 percent of eligible stroke patients treated with IV r-tPA and a stent\u00a0retriever in two and a half hours or less had minimal or no disability.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe same person who would have suffered a severely disabling or fatal stroke a few years ago\u00a0now commonly walks out of the hospital a few days later,\u201d said Alexander Khalessi, M.D.,\u00a0director of neurovascular surgery at the University of California, San Diego and national\u00a0spokesperson for the American Stroke Association\u2019s Together to End Stroke initiative. \u201cDecades\u00a0ago there were no treatments for stroke. Now we have therapies that may interrupt even the\u00a0most severe and disabling stroke if we can get to it in time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Through Together to End Stroke, nationally sponsored by Medtronic, the American Stroke\u00a0Association teaches the acronym F.A.S.T. as an easy way to remember the most common\u00a0stroke warning signs and how to respond: Face drooping, Arm weakness, Speech difficulty,\u00a0Time to call 911.<\/p>\n<p>For more information on stroke treatment and World Stroke Day resources, visit\u00a0StrokeAssociation.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When punch dribbled out of the side of Dan Merritt\u2019s mouth during a Halloween\u00a0celebration at his daughter\u2019s house, his wife quickly recognized stroke signs and drove him to\u00a0the hospital. \u201cIn hindsight, we did the right thing, the wrong way,\u201d Barbara Merritt said. \u201cWe should have\u00a0called 911 right away. Fortunately, Dan\u2019s story turned out okay, but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23810,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wellbeing","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-jqC","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/american-heart.jpg?fit=219%2C144&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}