Stroke: Time is brain in delivering EMS care

Stroke: Time is brain in delivering EMS care

The sooner treatment is started, the smaller the area of permanent damage will be

by DeWayne Miller

Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States and one of the leading causes of long-term disability. Stroke refers to the acute neurological impairment that follows an interruption in blood supply to a specific region of the brain¹.

It is beneficial to classify strokes as either hemorrhagic or ischemic. Ischemic strokes account for 87 percent of all strokes, and treatment that can dramatically improve outcome is available for a certain subset of carefully screened patients.

Time is brain. For every minute stroke is left untreated, an estimated 1.9 million neurons are destroyed². Each hour in which treatment fails to occur, the brain loses as many neurons as it does in almost 3.6 years of normal aging.

Research data indicate that 29 percent to 65 percent of patients with signs or symptoms of acute stroke access their initial medical care via local EMS.

Also, EMS is strongly associated with decreased time to initial physician examination, initial computed tomography (CT) imaging, and initial neurological evaluation³.

All of these are important when determining which treatment modality would provide the greatest benefit for the patient. The sooner treatment is started, the smaller the area of permanent damage will be and the better the quality of life the patient will have.

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