Norton Healthcares four adult-service hospitals each were awarded a 2020 American Heart Association Get With the Guidelines Stroke Care award. Norton Brownsboro Hospital received the highest possible award Gold Plus.

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Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) is a protein that triggers enzymes in blood to break clots apart.

Without blood supply, brain cells start to die at a rate of about 32,000 a second. To be effective, the medication must be administered within 4 1/2 hours of the first symptoms of a stroke.

Norton Neuroscience Institutes comprehensive stroke system consistently beats the American Heart Association (AHA)/American Stroke Associations aggressive benchmarks to deliver tPA to ischemic stroke patients quickly and safely.

The AHA awarded itsGet With the Guidelines Stroke Care award to Norton Healthcares four adult-service hospitals.

For example, when emergency medical services responders alert a Norton Healthcare hospital that they are en route with a suspected stroke case, anemergency stroke care teamwill ready computed tomography (CT) scanning equipment and keep a table free for the incoming patient. Kits are set up that contain the medication and tools for mixing the tPA and delivering the appropriate dosage. The board-certified, fellowship-trained neurologists and neurosurgeons of Norton Neuroscience Institute begin reviewing details about the patients condition.

If youre picturing a race-car pit crew jumping into action, you arent far off.

The emergency stroke care team includes:

About 85% of strokes are ischemic caused by blood clots that block blood flow to the brain either in the neck or the skull. The clots typically form in the heart or nearby blood vessels as plaque that has built up breaks away. Once in the bloodstream, the clot can fall apart on its own. If it gets lodged in an artery that supplies blood to the brain, it causes a stroke.

Ischemic strokes most often are treated with tPA administered intravenously in the arm. The medication prompts a clot to break apart, restoring blood flow.

In some cases, especially if the clot is large and located in one of the main arteries in the brain (large vessel occlusion), the best treatment may be to remove the clot manually. Norton Neuroscience Institute endovascular surgeons can remove clots with minimally invasive tools. A tiny wire cage is threaded through a blood vessel, usually through the groin, up to the site of the clot in the brain.

The endovascular surgeon opens the tool and grabs the clot, which is secured inside the tool and retrieved.

The procedure, a mechanical thrombectomy, can be performed in conjunction with tPA or as long as 24 hours after the start of symptoms.

A transient ischemic attack, sometimes also called, incorrectly, a mini stroke, can last only a few minutes and not cause permanent damage. But a transient ischemic attack should be considered as a warning as many people go on to have strokes.

Signs of a transient ischemic attack resemble early stroke symptoms and go away, usually within an hour. Since treating stroke successfully relies on speed,get emergency care right awayif you or someone close to you has stroke symptoms.

A brain bleed, or hemorrhagic stroke, occurs when a blood vessel in the brain leaks or bursts. The leaking blood puts pressure on the brain, killing brain cells. A brain bleed can be caused by conditions such as high blood pressure, an aneurysm (bulges in a blood vessel that can burst) or an arteriovenous malformation (known as an AVM, its an abnormal tangle of capillaries connecting an artery and vein).

Brain bleeds, also called cerebral hemorrhages, typically occur inside the brain, but also can result from bleeding just under the tissues that cover the outside of the brain.

Treatment of a hemorrhagic stroke depends on its severity. Medications can be used to reverse the effect of any blood thinners you take, lower your blood pressure and lower the pressure in your brain.

If surgery is needed, Norton Neuroscience Institute endovascular surgeons will thread tiny tools through your blood vessels and up to the site of the bleeding to drain blood and repair the cause of the bleeding.

Aneurysms can be clamped or filled with a tiny coil to promote clotting through minimally invasive endovascular procedures. Some AVMs can be removed surgically, while others may be targeted with a focused beam of radiation in a stereotactic radiosurgery procedure.

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Stroke Treatment - Norton Healthcare