Advanced treatment center at NCH aids patients suffering from strokes

Jim Shelden couldn’t move. “I was sitting at the kitchen table just completely passed out. I hit the floor,” he said recently. “I was out.” His wife didn’t hear the fall, but saw him on the floor.

“Oh my gosh. Jim’s had a stroke,” Carrie Shelden remembers thinking. “He wasn’t able to move, he could not speak, the left side of his body looked paralyzed.” 

Carrie was shocked and afraid, but she quickly called 911 and medics rushed her husband Jim to NCH Baker hospital. The clock was ticking.

Jim was brought to NCH Baker Hospital for a newly certified thrombectomy-capable stroke center. NCH became certified as a level-two stroke center last year and the program consistently beats national averages in delivering treatment. 

In the operating room at NCH they use advanced cameras that give them a full view of the brain.

“We are able to spin around the brain,” Dr. Abuawad said. “That will create a 3-D image, so that allows us to determine exactly where the clot is.”

When there’s a blockage in the brain, experts say, cells start dying at a rate of almost 2 million per minute. During that time, before treatment starts, the brain ages nearly four years every hour. 

“The chances of having a good recovery or response to treatment goes down by almost 44% for every hour of delay in treatment,” says Dr. Maren Abuawad, a radiologist at NCH. “When we say ‘time is brain,’ we really mean time is brain.”
 
Jim’s clot was removed less than two hours after he arrived at NCH. Four days later…
“I was able to walk out. And within a week to ten days, I was able to walk on the beach.” 

“When we see these results and we see these good outcomes,” Dr. Abuawad said, “it’s very gratifying. It makes it all worthwhile.”