No one likes to think they’ll end up in the emergency room during the holidays or on New Year’s, but the reality is that a cardiac emergency like a heart attack or stroke could happen to anyone at any time.  The best thing to do is be prepared and take the proper steps to either avoid these episodes or to act fast if one occurs.

What is a “mini-stroke”?

They frequently are not diagnosed or detected by a doctor because a patient does not immediately present with stroke signs.  Mini-strokes may lead to permanent neurological damage and increase risk for full blown stroke and potentially lead to dementia.  At least half of individuals over the age of 60 will experience one mini-stroke in their lifetime.

Mini-strokes often are detected well after the damage has been done and quite possibly by the time a patient has had several of them.  A typical scenario may be a patient who visits their doctor for chronic migraines and the doctor may order an MRI to rule out brain tumors, only to discover the patient has had several mini-strokes, which appear on a scan as little dots where the tissue has grown.

When you have a stroke, there's an area of the brain that dies rapidly almost at the epicenter of the injury, but there are neurons around it that die slowly.  Silent strokes are really common but their effects are not silent; 1 in 3 patients who have a mini-stroke will sustain permanent damage.

What can you do?

Preventative medicine is your best defense. There's no treatment available to reverse brain damage caused by a stroke or to lower a patient's chances for having recurring episodes or developing dementia.  To lower your risk for having a stroke, doctors recommend a healthy lifestyle, which includes a low sodium and low cholesterol diet, a regular exercise program, only moderate amounts of alcohol, and not smoking cigarettes.

If you think someone you know is having a stroke you can evaluate them by doing the following:

Face: ask the person to smile; does one half of the face droop?
Arms: ask the person to lift both arms; does one arm not lift as high?
Speech: ask the person to repeat a simple phrase; do they slur their speech?
Time: time is of the essence; if you observe any of these signs, call 911 immediately

What do I do during a heart attack?

The most important thing to do if any heart attack warning signs occur is to call 9-1-1 immediately.  Don't take an aspirin, then wait for it to relieve your pain.  It is important not to postpone calling 9-1-1.

After you call 9-1-1, the 9-1-1 operator may recommend that you take an aspirin; he or she can make sure that you don't have an allergy to aspirin or a condition that makes using it too risky.  Research shows that getting an aspirin early in the treatment of a heart attack, along with other treatments EMTs and Emergency Department physicians provide, can significantly improve your chances of survival.  Taking aspirin isn't advised during a stroke, because not all strokes are caused by blood clots.  Most strokes are caused by clots, but some are caused by ruptured blood vessels.  Taking aspirin could potentially make these bleeding strokes more severe.