The sooner a stroke is treated, the better the long term outlook for the patient becomes. Strokes involve a disruption of oxygen to the brain, and the longer this occurs, the more damage that can be done. Unfortunately, strokes remain as one of the most debilitating health events that can occur. Luckily, doctors and scientists are beginning to rethink how people are treated. Rather than bringing the person to the hospital for treatment, some are beginning to bring the hospital to the patient.
Some parts of the U.S. are implementing Mobile Stroke Units to help improve treatment outcomes. These MSUs, as they’re called, are ambulance vehicles that have been upgraded to be able to effectively treat a stroke while the patient is on the way to the hospital. Preliminary studies have indicated that bumping up the timeframe in which individuals that have suffered a stroke goes a long way toward avoiding disability afterwards.
This research was conducted by a team from the University of California Los Angeles Health Sciences. They found that MSUs were about 27 percent more effective at avoiding a major future disability. 11 percent of individuals that would have experienced some sort of disability went on to be completely disability free thanks to the quicker treatment time.
Now, this is not a definitive study, but it does make a lot of sense. The quicker someone is treated for a stroke, the better the outcome tends to be. Multiple studies have pointed to this in the past. And with the MSUs in Los Angeles, the average time before treatment went from 108 minutes to 72 minutes. About a third of all MSU treated patients were able to be treated within the first 60 minutes after their stroke began.
Hopefully, this is a trend that continues in other major cities. Hopefully, people can live longer, healthier lives as a result of this kind of treatment.
If your loved one has a stroke, it’s important that they see an emergency team right away. Even if you suspect that a stroke might have happened, it’s important to get an ambulance to them as soon as possible. Every minute that passes between a stroke and treatment is a minute that works against them when it comes to a full recovery. In the past, experts have stated that strokes need to be treated within two hours of occurring in order for your loved one to have the best chance possible when it comes to a recovery. In reality, they should be treated much sooner to give them the best long term prognosis.
If your loved one is receiving care from someone else, it’s really important that they understand what the warning signs of a stroke look like. If you are hiring a caregiver to work with a loved one, or if your loved one is moving into a care facility, then you want to ensure that the people that will be working with your mom or dad have the training necessary to be able to recognize a stroke when it starts.
Leave a Reply