Want to Save Some Lives? Here is a Simple Formula for Identifying Strokes

By Don Hazen, AlterNet. Posted December 22, 2008.

Do you know when someone might be having a stroke and what to do about it? I didn't, and it spooked me. My sister died earlier this year -- probably from a stroke. But she lived far away from me, and when she noticed something might be wrong, she insisted she didn't want to go to a hospital. She was found dead the following morning.

A fellow board member of Talking Eyes Media, an energetic woman in her 50s, slurred her speech during the day some months ago and didn't think enough of it. She had a massive stroke that evening and will never recover. 

Each year, 600,000-700,000 Americans experience strokes, which are defined as "interruptions of the blood supply to any part of the brain, resulting in damaged brain tissue." Stroke is the third-leading cause of death in the United States. Persons surviving strokes often suffer lifelong physical problems involving their speech, limb movement and thought processes.

Since I have known stroke victims, I want to be as aware as possible when a stroke might be happening. I have been in denial in terms of not knowing some simple basic information that could be very helpful, to myself and to others. A stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke. But some doctors insist that if you can get a person help within three hours of a stroke, there are chances of reversing it. But that requires a) recognizing that it is happening, and b) getting them to the right medical care.

Meanwhile, there is an e-mail that has been making the rounds for years that provides a very simple, easy-to-remember tool for helping to recognize strokes. Much off-the-wall information flies around the Internet, so one has to be initially skeptical about what lands in your e-mail box. So I did a little research on Snopes.com, which confirms that this straightforward "STR" system of recognizing stroke systems is quite dependable and helpful. The Snopes.com write-up is included after this article.

So, the bottom line is that it is very possible for a bystander to recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

• S -- Ask the individual to SMILE
• T -- Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK (coherently) A SIMPLE SENTENCE (E.g. "It is sunny out today.")
• R -- Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS   

If he or she has trouble with any one of these tasks, call 999/911 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

And to remember these three questions, try very hard to remember the letters STR, and remember that they stand for Smile, Talk, Raise. Maybe remember them as the first three letters of the word “stroke.”

As Snopes.com underscores:  "... it is important laypeople learn to recognize such events, because a new drug has been shown to limit disability from strokes caused by clots (ischemic), provided victims receive it within three hours of the onset of stroke symptoms. Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA)  is a clot-busting drug administered intravenously in cases of ischemic stroke; however, only 1 in 50 stroke patients has a chance of this drug helping them because currently only 2-4 percent of them reach an emergency room in time for tPA to be given.

Stroke Warning Signs

There needs to be a similar awareness of the warning signs of a stroke. Frequently, victims simply don't recognize that they are experiencing a stroke, nor do the people around them. "People really don't know much about strokes," says Dr. Bruce Ovbiagele, director of the Olive View/UCLA Stroke Program and a spokesman for the American Stroke Association. "Only about 27 percent of the public can name one stroke symptom."

In some cases, cognitive problems such as confusion caused by the stroke can impair a person's ability to understand what is happening. So, keep in mind that the warning signs include:

See more stories tagged with: health, strokes, stroke identification, stroke symptoms, tpa, tissue plasminogen activa

Don Hazen is the executive editor of AlterNet.

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