![]() ![]() If their physician determines they need more intense treatment, they arrange for a helicopter to pick them up.Ĭoordinated stroke care enables doctors to reduce permanent disabilities like vision or movement impairment. If a patient in Sussex County has a stroke, they go to their local hospital first. “And we know that the treatments are the most effective the sooner we’re able to restore blood flow, we’re able to prevent permanent death to that part of the brain.” “As soon as a blockage occurs, part of the brain starts dying,” Raser-Schramm said. As Christiana Care doctors say, “time is brain.” Jonathan Raser-Schramm, the program’s medical director, says coordinating these procedures quickly and efficiently is important because a stroke patient can lose two million brain cells per minute. Last year, Christiana Care doctors performed more than 80 mechanical thrombectomies on large vessel blockages, and offered tPA to more than 300 people. Christiana Care first started performing it in 2007 and studies validating its effectiveness started appearing in 2015. He says tPA is just one option to improve a patient’s life.Ĭhristiana Care is the only hospital in Delaware that offers a minimally invasive procedure called mechanical thrombectomy, where doctors surgically remove a large blood clot in more severe stroke cases. “Some of these patients can literally go home that would’ve been in a skilled nursing center the rest of their lives,” said Doug Huisenga, the program manager of Christiana Care Health System’s Comprehensive Stroke Program. Food & Drug Administration approved an IV drip medicine called tPA that doctors use to dissolve blood clots and return blood flow to the brain - and the game changed. If you had a stroke 30 years ago, doctors would monitor your blood pressure and probably give you an aspirin.īut in 1995, the U.S. That’s why hospitals in the state coordinate to get patients to Christiana Care Health System in Newark - the only place in Delaware that can do a specialized procedure to surgically remove large blood clots. In stroke care, time is of the essence to prevent a patient from rapidly losing brain cells. ![]()
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