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Article: Feel stroke symptoms ? Get to hospital now: ; Early medical intervention can greatly limit damage to brain
- Article from:
- Charleston Gazette
- Article date:
- August 8, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2000 Charleston Gazette. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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WASHINGTON - It happens daily: People show up in the emergency
room with stroke symptoms that began hours, occasionally days,
earlier. But because they didn't recognize - or denied - early
symptoms, it's too late for frustrated doctors to give a powerful
drug that could have stopped the brain damage. Indeed, former
President Gerald Ford was lucky last week that his own stroke proved
too mild to need that clot-busting drug, because he would have been
too late.
The drug TPA has revolutionized stroke care, restoring blood flow
into victims' brains to help many recover with little disability -
but only if they receive it within three hours of the first
symptoms. That's the problem: Mostly ...