19-05-2025
Ask A Specialist: Stroke Awareness Month
HONOLULU (KHON2) — May is National Stroke Awareness Month, a time to get educated about the warning signs of a stroke and how to prevent it. It's important to recognize the signs of a stroke as soon as possible.
Ask A Specialist – Measles
The acronym BEFAST can help you remember the signs of a stroke:
B: Balance
E: Eye Problems
F: Face Drooping
A: Arm Weakness
S: Speech Problems
T: Time to call 911'Part of treating a stroke is just recognizing it. We always say time is brain, because you need to get in the ambulance as soon as possible because stroke care actually begins in the ambulance,' said Dr. Rony Salem, a vascular neurologist at The Queen's Health Systems. 'We have a system set up here in Hawaii where as soon as a stroke patient is recognized by EMS in the ambulance they contact a stroke team at Queens and we can, in real time, evaluate the patient on the camera, get the stroke team ready.'
If the patient meets certain criteria, there are certain emergency treatments that can be used.
'If the patient gets to the hospital within four and a half hours of when the stroke started there's an emergency clot-busting medicine, an IV medicine, to try and dissolve the blood clot. In certain situations we might consider doing a procedure called the clot retrieval or mechanical thrombectomy procedure where we actually take a little catheter wire, go through the groin, and using live imaging move that wire all the way to the brain to actually physically pull that clot out to reopen the blood vessel that's blocked,' said Dr. Salem.
There are various things that can increase your risk of having a stroke.
'The most common ones – high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol. Those are the big three. And if you have some time of heart disease or irregular heartbeat, those are significant risk factors for stroke,' Dr. Salem said.
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Lifestyle choices such as smoking, vaping, alcohol or drug use can also increase your risk for stroke.
To learn more about the services provided by The Queen's Health Systems, visit their website.
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