Stroke Survivors, Caregivers, Experts Share Insights at UAMS Stroke Conference
| Four stroke survivors and about a dozen clinicians who work with stroke patients shared insights and expertise at the 2024 University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Stroke Conference.
The daylong event, held September 13 in the UAMS Jackson T. Stephens & Neurosciences Institute, was presented by the UAMS Comprehensive Stroke Center to highlight statewide care options and promote optimal care for stroke patients.
Called “Stroke of Genius: Advancing Stroke Outcomes in the Natural State,” the conference attracted an auditorium full of nurses, doctors, pharmacists, physician assistants, dieticians and athletic trainers, as well as a virtual audience. It featured speakers from UAMS, across the state and around the country who discussed prehospital, acute and post-acute care for stroke patients.
“It was a great opportunity to network and collaborate with multidisciplinary teams and agencies across the state and region,” said Paige Womack, BSN, RN, director of the UAMS Comprehensive Stroke Program.
In addition to clinical presentations, the attendees heard from a panel of stroke survivors, including Freddie Joe Tate, 87, of Piggott, a father of four who had a stroke March 5, 2021.
Thanks to emergency first-aid training he received years earlier as an assistant manager at a factory, Tate said he recognized immediately that he was having a stroke and knew he needed to seek help quickly.
“I got up, put my foot on the floor, and it wouldn’t hold up,” he said in a 2022 interview. “Then I felt funny, and put my hand on my face, and I’m all droopy on the left side. I told my wife, ‘I’m having a stroke. We’ve got to call a doctor.’”
He was transported to Piggott Community Hospital, where he and his nurses and doctors consulted with a UAMS neurologist nearly 200 miles away in Little Rock through the UAMS Institute for Digital Health & Innovation Stroke Program, which provides 24/7 real-time stroke diagnosis and treatment for 63 rural hospitals.
Tate received alteplase, a thrombolytic agent that is FDA-approved for use in acute ischemic strokes, within 2 ½ hours of the onset of his symptoms. Then, as the drug began to work in his body, he was transported by helicopter to UAMS for further treatment.
Although he still has some nerve damage that causes him to fall and that interferes with his memory, his caregivers say his overall recovery has been remarkable.
“God bless you all for the profession you chose,” he told some of them from the stage, waving and smiling. “You saved my life, kids!”
Another stroke survivor, Eric Treat of Conway, had a stroke in August 2023.
“I could not dial my phone, so I went to my neighbors’ house,” he said. “How I made it, I don’t know. But if someone had not called 911, I would have died.”
Though he is still working through some stroke-related language setbacks, the recipient of three Distinguished Toastmasters awards pushed through the difficulties to emphasize the need for better awareness of stroke symptoms.
Treat has long been an advocate for the disabled, and said that since the stroke, he has expanded his advocacy to include educating people about stroke prevention and the need for quick treatment.
Michael Capoot, retired from the U.S. Marine Corps, where he was a pilot, and later the Little Rock School District, where he taught mathematics, had a stroke last year while he and his wife traveled across the country in their motor home.
Capoot, 76, said he didn’t know that sudden eyesight changes could be signs of a stroke, so he didn’t panic when things started getting blurry as the couple explored Sarasota, Florida. Then he experienced bouts of double vision, and it “felt like I was looking through Saran Wrap. Things were weird.”
He said he began to realize that “wherever I would focus, I couldn’t see anything in the top quarter” of his field of vision. Then his brain started filling in some of the blank spots with images that weren’t there.
Capoot said it dawned on him what was happening when he “saw” part of a motor home that he knew he shouldn’t be able to see from his position behind a solid object, and again when he walked “smack into a post” that was right in front of him but that he couldn’t see.
“I said to my wife, ‘This is not an eye thing. This is a brain thing,’” he said, adding that he finally went to an emergency room, where he learned that he’d had a right occipital lobe stroke.
“Until I had my stroke, I had zero indications that eye problems can predict a stroke,” Capoot said. Now, he wants everyone to know that “whenever you have a section of your vision that can’t be seen, go the ER now.”
Because he waited several days to seek help, he said, “My upper left vision is totally gone,” although his brain has compensated somewhat.
Another stroke survivor, Matthew Mendenhall of the Camden area, said he experienced a severe stroke in November 2023, at the age of 38.
The pest control technician, who is also a recreational hunter and angler, said he walked into his house one day and, like always, greeted his miniature dachshund, told his wife he loved her and went to lay his wallet on the desk.
However, the wallet fell to the floor, and as he bent down to retrieve it, “I stumbled a little,” he said. Then he sat on the couch to remove his boots, but “I couldn’t seem to get them off.”
His wife, Brooke, quickly realized something was wrong and called for an ambulance, ignoring his insistence on taking their son on a youth hunting excursion, as planned.
While en route to Ouachita County Medical Center in the ambulance, he continued to chat about places he wanted to go fishing, oblivious to his impaired state, he said. But later, when he looked closely at his wife and realized she was crying, he understood that something was seriously wrong.
Brooke Mendenhall sat beside her husband as he talked, finishing some of his sentences when he trailed off and struggled to find the right word. She had learned to keep a sharp eye on him after he had a heart attack at age 32, and she emphasized the importance of knowing family members’ habits and movements well enough to spot small signs of trouble and get help right away.
The Camden hospital provided initial treatment, then Mendenhall was med-flighted to UAMS, where he was treated by a multidisciplinary stroke team before going home three days later.
Mendenhall says he still has some speech problems, particularly when tired, but because of his wife’s ability to spot the subtle changes he was experiencing and her insistence on calling for help, he doesn’t expect to have lasting impairments.
Among the experts who shared expertise at the conference was Satya Narayana Patro, M.D., an associate professor and chief of the UAMS Division of Neuro Interventional Radiology.
Patro discussed differences between ischemic strokes, which occur when blood cannot reach the brain due to a blood clot or other blockage, and hemorrhagic strokes, caused by bleeding in the brain due to high blood pressure or an aneurysm. Ischemic strokes are the second most common cause of death worldwide.
In an ischemic stroke event, Patro said, “the timely restoration of blood flow is important,” because with each minute that passes after a stroke, “we lose 1.9 million brain cells.”
He said the median age of stroke patients is 68, and the goal of treatment is always the timely restoration of blood flow. He said CT scans are widely used in detecting strokes, while MRIs provide higher specificity but take longer — up to 20 to 30 minutes — to perform.
Patro said that 10% to 15% of strokes occur in adults younger than 50, and smoking is the biggest risk factor for people in that age group.
Womack urged participants to get the word out that UAMS offers a monthly stroke education and support group that encourages in-person participation but has a virtual component for those who cannot attend.
The meetings begin at noon on scheduled dates in Room 1160 of the UAMS Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, 629 Jack Stephens Drive in Little Rock. The next meeting is scheduled for Oct. 23. A link to attend virtually will be available 15 minutes before the start of each meeting by visiting: https://idhi.uams.edu/stroke-program/resources/survivor-and-caregiver-support.