Stroke awareness: What you need to know
"We were told by the medical personnel that we had a 35-minute window period left during which they were able to give me the medication, and after that I would have died," said stroke survivor, Rokaya Mustapha.
STROKE is the fourth leading cause of death and disability in South Africa. This is according to the Ethekwini Hospital and Heart Centre’s (EHHC) manager, Niresh Bechan. It has also been estimated that 70 people die from a stroke annually in South Africa and that someone suffers a stroke every six minutes.
It is for these reasons that the hospital, as an accredited Stroke Centre of Excellence, hopes to facilitate awareness regarding the deadly disease during Stroke Awareness Week (28 October to 3 November). Hospital staff will be going out to the community and visiting schools to educate the public. A stroke, often referred to as a ‘brain attack’, occurs when blood supply is cut off to a section of the the brain.
Awareness surrounding the causes and symptoms of stroke has especially hit home among staff at the hospital after they nearly lost one of their own to the disease earlier this year.
It started as a normal morning
Rokaya Mustapha, a medical secretary in the X-ray department, found herself inches from death after a typical morning on 5 September. During an interview with the Northglen News last week, she recalled how she stepped into the shower and then suddenly felt her left arm grow numb and limp.
“I couldn’t move or feel my arm and then my vision also started getting blurry. My left leg also grew numb and couldn’t walk. I managed to crawl out of the shower and onto the bed next to my husband, Shabeer. At that point my speech was also slurred,” she said.
Within a few minutes of her reaching the bed, her stroke peaked.
“She began making these horrifying sounds, and her mouth and her left eye began to contort. I thought that I was going to lose her. I sat next to her on the bed, stroking her hair and trying my best to comfort her. Within five minutes the stroke had passed. She was awake and alert and recognised me, but she mixed up her words as she tried to speak,” said Shabeer.
They rushed her to the EHHC, where she was immediately sent for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test, which confirmed that she had suffered a stroke. Adéle Botha, the manager of the emergency department, then administered the high risk medication, Actilyse, which saved Rokaya’s life.
“We were told by the medical personnel that we had a 35-minute window period left during which they were able to give me the medication, and after that I would have died. There is a three to four-hour window period during which the treatment can be administered after a stroke,” she said.
Botha explains that the Actilyse could induce bleeding if it is given to a patient after the window period.
“There are two kinds of stroke: an ischaemic stroke, caused by a clot in the brain, or a haemorrhagic stroke, caused by a cerebral bleed. In both cases the brain is starved of blood and essentially oxygen, causing parts of the brain to die. It is therefore important that the patient is brought into the emergency room as soon as possible and that people recognise the symptoms of a stroke,” she explained.
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