COON RAPIDS, Minn. – (May 24, 2018) – According to the National Stroke Association, this month alone about 65,000 Americans will experience a stroke. May is National Stroke Awareness Month: a time when Americans are encouraged to learn to identify a stroke, and take steps to lower their risk of having a stroke.
Mercy Hospital has been working hard to get patients who do have strokes back to their regular life as often as possible. Their Emergency Department sees about fifty stroke cases a month.
“Anyone can have strokes,” said Dr. Michael Schwemm, medical director of the Mercy Hospital Emergency Department. “Teenagers and pediatric patients, all the way up to people over 100 years of age.”
Nationwide, about 800,000 strokes are seen a year, and while anyone can have a stroke, risk factors that make a stroke more likely include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, a sedentary lifestyle, smoking, family history of stroke, and obesity.
“Worldwide it’s still one of the leading causes of death,” said Schwemm.
It’s best to be seen in an emergency room within three hours of the onset of stroke symptoms. During that time window, doctors are often able to help. Now doctors at Mercy Hospital are using a new treatment to help even more. Their new procedure is called a mechanical thrombectomy. They started performing it in August.
It’a mechanical procedure, so physically going in through an artery in the groin, threading a wire up through the extent of the body, and up into the brain, and removing pieces of that clot manually.”
Serious strokes can lead to loss of body control, loss of independent living, and more. This procedure is allowing some people with the worst strokes to have only minor, if any, lasting effects.
But, it’s not a procedure for everyone. Their blood clots have to be large, they have to get to the hospital quickly, and their strokes have to be severe for doctors to recommend this.
“It’s not a miracle cure. Stroke is a very bad disease with a very imperfect treatment, but it gets us a little closer to helping get people back home as much as we can.”
In their 48 procedures and counting they’ve done in the first ten months, they’ve seen how their work is changing lives.
“This has been a huge game changer for us,” said Schwemm, “So far, outcomes have been wonderful.”
