Long Island Hospitals Form Teams to Help Treat Stroke Victims Faster
Posted on: Friday, 12 August 2005, 21:01 CDT
Long Island hospitals are forming teams to help treat stroke victims.
Stony Brook University Hospital, Winthrop-University Hospital and Southside Hospital all have set up stroke centers and teams.
Good Samaritan Hospital is in the process of creating a center and has beefed up training of staff.
The reason for the focus on speed: Treating a stroke is a race.
A stroke occurs when a blood vessel carrying oxygen to the brain is blocked or bursts, preventing a portion of the brain from getting essential blood and oxygen.
Stroke victims can be successfully treated with a drug known as a tissue plasminogen activator or t-PA, which dissolves blood clots and often reverses damage.
But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug for up to three hours after the stroke, making time a crucial factor.
There is only a three-hour window from the onset of symptoms when the clot-busting drug is effective, says Robert Suter, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians.
Added John Broder, a spokesman for Winthrop-University Hospital, Time lost is brain lost.
Winthrop-University equips a five-person stroke team with special beepers, so they can be called by the emergency department if needed.
Suter says it's crucial to have the right staff and equipment available at all times.
Too often emergency physicians are unable to get a timely CT scan or a radiologist or neurologist to provide a timely consultation of the scan, Suter says.
Others say ambulances should not always take possible stroke victims to the nearest hospital, because only those able to administer t-PA can provide the best treatment.
New York just concluded a study in which people suffering from possible stroke were sent to hospitals that carried t-PA.
The designated centers had better outcomes, said Dr. Elzbieta Wirkowski, director of cerebral vascular disorders and co-director of the neurological intensive care unit at Winthrop-University.
She says a system to route stroke victims to stroke centers on Long Island - instead of the nearest hospital - is going to happen soon here.
Suter said that educating people about how to detect a stroke is imperative.
Most wait too long to get care, Suter said.
Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow is doing its part to educate the public. In May it held a Stroke Awareness Day, providing free stroke risk-factor screenings.
And, of course, if you think you're having a stroke, call 911, not your physician, Wirkowski says.
Source: Long Island Business News
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