Stroke Identification

[nima]

STROKE IDENTIFICATION:



During a session in the office a friend stumbled and took a little fall - she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics) and just tripped over 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, Alice went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening.



Alice's husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital (at 6:00pm, Ingrid passed away). She had suffered a stroke at the office - had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke perhaps Alice would be with us today.



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 in getting to the patient within 3 hours which is tough.



RECOGNIZING A STROKE:



Thank God for the sense to remember the "3" steps. Read and Learn!



Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer 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:



1. *Ask the individual to SMILE.



2. *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.



3. *Ask the person to SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently) (i.e. . . It is sunny out today)



If he or she has trouble with any of these tasks, call help immediately and describe the symptoms to the doctor. After discovering that a group of non-medical volunteers could identify facial weakness, arm weakness and speech problems, researchers urged the general public to learn the three questions. They presented their conclusions at the American Stroke Association's annual meeting last February. Widespread use of this test could result in prompt diagnosis and treatment of the stroke and prevent brain damage.

[Angel]

A very encouraging and useful news for all of us, Thanks Nima.

[Suvash]

thank you for such a useful post. i am sure this will be very useful in the management of stroke. the 3 things are so simple that even layman can identify stroke by using those simple questions. what else do we need then?