There’s life after stroke

Stroke, also known as "brain attack," strikes stealthily and with sudden cruelty.

Consider these two examples. A painter, in his 50s, may be working on an opus today, only to find the right side of his body, including his arm, paralyzed next day.

A college professor is holding class one afternoon. The next morning, she is struggling with her speech, a condition known as aphasia, a common effect of stroke.

Stroke is getting to be a huge problem so much so that the World Health Organization warned that it will be an epidemic by 2020.

The Philippines is already burdened by the growing number of people suffering from brain attack. Statistics from the Department of Health show that diseases of the vascular system, which include stroke, are the country’s second leading cause of death and the leading cause of disability.

Some 600 patients, many of whom had their first attack, are admitted to the St. Luke’s Medical Center (SLMC) annually for stroke, according to the hospital’s data from 1999 to 2002. Other hospitals are also saddled with high number of stroke patients.

It’s not an ugly twist of fate that people succumb to brain attack. There are risk factors which make them likely candidates. These are increasing age, sex, heredity, prior stroke, high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes and carotid artery disease.

Early warning signs include sudden numbness or weakness of face, arm or leg, especially in one side of the body; sudden confusion, speech difficulty; sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes; sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination; and sudden, severe headache with no known cause.

Yet misconceptions about stroke linger. Dr. Cristina San Jose, training officer at the Institute of Neuroscience at SLMC, said many people, including their parents and relatives, often confuse stroke for heart attack.

"There was one patient who suffered a stroke who told us that he had chest pain while has having a stroke," San Jose recalls. "He took it to mean that he had a heart attack."

There is also the notion that after a stroke, a patient is discharged from the hospital, and that maintenance medications can be taken intermittently or altogether stopped.

These and other difficult issues facing stroke survivors have prompted San Jose and neurologist Dr. Natalie Apaga, psychiatrist Dr. Rocio Cabio, and Dr. Epifanio Collantes to develop a program dubbed as "Life After First Stroke (LAFFS)."

The program began last year after it won third place in the Patient Program Contest sponsored by the Stroke Society of the Philippines.

For more information, call St. Luke’s at 723-0101 local 7391.