RAK Hospital conducts free to attend sessions on brain stroke for local community

Workshop on Oct 29th, World Stroke Day, to focus on creating awareness, minimizing damage during Brain Stroke, Demo and lecture to help people recognize signs of stroke and take immediate action. 

RAK Hospital at the forefront of Stroke Care, fully equipped with trained stroke specialist and Neurologists.

• UAE has very high rates of strokes. One stroke every hour. Stroke remains the number one killer in the region after road deaths.
• Every 40 seconds, 3 people in the world suffer from a stroke. It is the number one cause of adult disability around the globe
• Women are twice as likely to die from stroke than from breast cancer annually.
• Recognizing symptoms and acting FAST to get medical attention can save a life and limit disabilities.
• Hypertension, diabetes, smoking, obesity, heart diseases key factors contributing to strokes.

October 26, 2015; Ras Al Khaimah, UAE: On the occasion of World Stroke Day this Thursday, Oct 29th, and with an aim to create awareness, minimizing damage and timely treatment of brain stroke, RAK Hospital, UAE’s premium healthcare institution, is organizing a special awareness talk by Specialist Neurologist  Dr. Sweta Prakash Adatia. The lecture, which is open to public and free to attend, will be held on October 29th, between 2:30pm and 3:30pm at the hospital premises. Dr. Adatia will in particular discuss ways to read signs of brain stroke and the need for hospitals to be “stroke ready” when such cases arrive. 

Government organizations, private companies and local community are also invited to take advantage of this awareness drive by the hospital, wherein they can request for similar sessions to be held in their premises complimentary.

“According to DHA figures, every hour, one person in the UAE suffers from brain stroke. The thing about strokes is that they occur suddenly and the damage takes place very quickly; therefore, the longer it takes a person to get medical assistance, the more is the brain damage. This is why it is important that we not only learn to read the symptoms, but also take speedy measures to take the patient to the hospital, where he/she should be given treatment on priority basis,” stresses Dr Adatia. Brain stroke remains the number one killer in the region after road deaths.

Research has revealed that young people in the UAE are more susceptible to stroke, where the average age is younger than the world average. Moreover, one-third of strokes are under the age of 65 years and particularly affecting people in their forties. Dr Adatia identifies hypertension, diabetes, smoking, obesity, heart diseases as key factors contributing to strokes in the UAE.

The need for timely intervention can be discerned from the fact that in the case of Transient Ischaemic Attack (TIA), the risk of suffering a stroke increases from 5 percent in the first 48 hours to 17 percent in three months. In the case of clotting type of stroke, 1.9 million cells die per minute. Doctors advise people to follow the acronym FAST (face, arm, speech and time) to understand if another person is suffering from stroke. The person should be asked to smile, raise the hand and talk. If facing problems with any of these, he should be rushed to the nearest hospital which offers facility of clot busting drug called TPA (tissue plasminogen activator) for the stroke induced by clotting of the blood vessels. 

“For the clotting types of strokes, the drug has to be given in the first 4.5 hours. However, the first 60 minutes should be the target and golden hour is where the stroke patients need to be administered TPA. For those suffering from hemorrhage or bleeding type of stroke,  timely therapy by providing immediate ICU care and stabilization is important, some strokes may require additional surgical removal of blood clots or decompression of the brain might be additionally required.” adds Dr Adatia. 

“Since time is of essence, it is important that hospitals should have the equipment to deal with stroke emergencies,”says Dr. Raza Siddiqui, CEO Arabian Healthcare Group and Executive Director of RAK Hospital. “RAK Hospital is among a few hospitals in the UAE which are “stroke ready”, and is a major facility that provides stroke care. We have an excellent staff with neurologists and trained stroke specialist besides sophisticated medical equipment to counter stroke cases.”

World Health Federation statistics indicate that stroke is the second-leading cause of disability after dementia, which may include loss of vision and / or speech, paralysis and confusion. Around 15 million people suffer a stroke every year, out of which nearly six million die and another five million are permanently disabled. Globally, it is the second leading cause of death for people above the age 60 and the fifth leading cause of death in people aged between 15 and 59 years.