Summary: A quick new method for determining if somebody is having a stroke.
Martha, being somewhat of an introvert, felt self-conscious when attending her daughter’s wedding. That is why when she stumbled at the reception, she minimized it, citing the constraining formal wear as the culprit, and asked others not to worry about paramedics or anything like that. Later that night Martha’s husband called to say she had to be taken to the hospital, and by midnight she had passed.
Not everybody who has a stroke dies from it; others can end up disabled or incapacitated. Others can pull right through. What matters is diagnosing a stroke within 3 hours. If you can do that, neurologists say the results of the stroke can be reversed.
How then to quickly determine whether you are dealing with a stroke, or whether it is something more mundane and unimportant?
Remember the acronym STR.
S – Ask the person to smile.
T – Ask the person to talk, to speak a coherent sentence.
R – Ask the person to raise both arms.
Another quick test is to get him or her to stick out her tongue. If they can do that, without sticking the tongue out to the side or making it crooked, you have a good test whether or not it is is a stroke.
If the person is unable to do any of these things, be sure to call an emergency number and detail the symptoms to the dispatcher. Having such a quick method for determining a stroke could save the life of somebody you love.