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Battling back...
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| Medical staff looking at a CT scan |
TO say that Dick Davies is lucky to be alive is a bit of an understatement. While he was in his early twenties and on National Service he was involved in an accident in which he was crushed between two tanks.
As he lay in hospital, a priest arrived to give him the last rites. When he did not die, doctors told him he would be unable to walk or have children. He proved them wrong on both counts, fathering three with his wife Hazel and running his own haulage business.
Then, on August 24 last year, Dick was in bed at the couple's home in Moordown, Bournemouth, when he noticed something wrong. "My right hand and leg were shaking. I couldn't make out what was happening."
When the shaking stopped, he was unable to move his left arm or leg.
"I said: I think I've had a stroke'," he recalled.
Hazel rang the doctor, but was told to dial 999. An ambulance arrived in minutes and the crew carried out the "FAST" test. It confirmed he was showing the classic signs of a stroke - facial weakness, arm and leg weakness and speech problems.
Dick was whisked to the Royal Bournemouth Hospital for further tests, including a brain scan, and within two hours of his stroke was given thrombolysis, an injection of a clot-busting drug.
Despite a recent seizure, he is in pretty good shape for a 77-year-old who has now cheated death twice.
"Nobody could have had a better service than I had," he said.
Most strokes are caused by a clot, which interrupts the flow of blood to the brain, causing tissue to die. Prompt action can prevent further damage, but delays can lead to paralysis, memory loss, difficulties in communication, and even death.
The National Stroke Strategy, published last December, which says that all strokes, including "mini strokes" or transient ischaemic attacks, should be treated as emergencies.
Among other recommendations are that suitable candidates should receive thrombolysis within three hours of their symptoms, and that all stroke or TIA patients should go to a specialist stroke unit.
The Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals already had a national reputation for stroke services, and its consultant Dr Damian Jenkinson helped to draw up the strategy.
He is now the national clinical lead for the NHS improvement programme. "Half the time I spend doing national work and half on being a doctor. It continues to ground me," he said.
The care of stroke patients has been reorganised at the Royal Bournemouth, so that 96 per cent of them now spend most of their time in the stroke unit, compared to 55 per cent a couple of years ago.
In September the thrombolysis service for the RBH and Poole is being extended to cover 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and a new stroke centre is being built at Bournemouth to combine acute care and rehabilitation.
At the Royal Bournemouth, requests for scans can be made online by nurses in order to speed up diagnosis and treatment. Thrombolysis can even be started in the CT suite. "We know that each minute that goes past, two million more neurones are dying," said Dr Jenkinson.
The median time from stroke to thrombolysis in Europe is 2 hours and 15 minutes, but Bournemouth's average is 1 hour 55 minutes. At the moment, only 0.2 per cent of stroke patients nationally are receiving the treatment, but 10-15 per cent could benefit.
"Even if they aren't eligible, being brought into hospital rapidly improves outcomes for everybody. There will be other drugs that come along," said Dr Jenkinson.
The Stroke Association and members of the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals stroke team will have a stand at the Sovereign Centre on May 13 and at the trust open day on May 14 to mark European Stroke Awareness Day. There will be the chance to ask questions, pick up information and have a free blood pressure check.
11:41am Wednesday 7th May 2008
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