STOPPING A STROKE IN ITS TRACKS A MULTIDISCIPLINARY NEUROCRITICAL CARE TEAM PROVIDES COMPREHENSIVE TREATMENT.
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n November 2019, David* and his wife, Ann*, were helping Ann’s mother clean out her home. David, a physician, was going through a drawer when, all of a sudden, he felt the urge to lie down. “I couldn’t talk, and I couldn’t move half of my body,” recalls David, 56. Shortly afterward, Ann found him lying on the floor. “I called 911,” says Ann, 55, who is also a physician. “I thought he might have bleeding in the brain, so I DEVIYANI MEHTA, MD Healthy Together
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wanted him to go to a Comprehensive Stroke Center.” An advanced life support ambulance picked up David and brought him to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH). The paramedics had notified the hospital that a stroke patient was on the way, so the Code Stroke team was able to prepare for David’s arrival in the Emergency Department (ED). Deviyani Mehta, MD, a stroke neurologist and Associate Professor of Neurology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and RWJUH, was the attending physician on duty when David arrived. Ian Hakkinen, MD, a third-year neurology resident at
Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and RWJUH, spoke with Ann and was instrumental in ensuring quick treatment.
REVERSING STROKE DAMAGE
The team had to determine what kind of stroke David had suffered—a hemorrhagic stroke, which occurs when a weakened blood vessel in the brain bursts and starts bleeding, or an ischemic stroke, which is caused by a blood clot. A CT scan showed he didn’t have any bleeding in the brain. That finding, combined with the fact that he had arrived at the hospital within 4.5 hours of the onset of symptoms, made him a
Winter 2021
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