Q: I have had high blood pressure for a few years now. I am taking pills for it, but it is still high. I am 75 years old and female. I know that I am likely to have a stroke at my age. I was wondering if it is safe or a good idea to get the clot busting medicine. I have heard that it can make a big difference in the amount of paralysis a person would get after a stroke. Can paramedics give you the drug on the way to the hospital to save time?
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A: New research from Oxford, England, has shown that the quicker the patient gets the clot-busting drug, tPA, the better the outcome from a stroke. For every 15 minutes that treatment is delayed, the recovery time will take one month longer.
After about four and one half hours, it is probably too late to make much difference as the damage to the surrounding brain tissue will already have occurred due to a lack of blood flow and oxygen to the area.
Getting the treatment in the first 15 minutes would be ideal, but the problem is that doctors need to first perform a CT scan to make sure that the stroke is due to a blood clot and not a bleed.
Giving tPA to someone who is having a cerebral hemorrhage could make the situation worse.
Most strokes are due to clots, and the symptoms are different as people with bleeding into the brain generally have a bad headache.
It is best to be on the safe side and do the tests before administering the drug. Most patients who need it are able to get the treatment within 70 or 80 minutes.
In some countries, mobile stroke units that include a portable type of CT scanner are being considered. As the population ages, this could be feasible as hospital stays and other treatments such as physiotherapy could be shortened.
device for epileptics
People with intractable epilepsy whose seizures are badly or only partially controlled, even by as many as three different medications, often find it difficult to hold jobs and are not allowed to drive in Canada unless they have been free of seizures for at least six months.
They may also suffer repeated injuries from falls and burns and their mortality rate is two to three times higher than that of the general population.
There are about three million epileptics in Canada and the United States. Up to one-third of these people have seizures that are not adequately controlled with medications.
Recently, researchers developed an interesting alternative to medications. A battery-powered device that is attached to electrodes is implanted in the skull. The wires are threaded into the brain, tracking its electrical activity and suppressing impending seizures.
