Every once in a while, my mother goes on a forwarding spurt,
funneling me often more than a dozen funny or touching or raunchy
e-mails in a week, and this time was no exception.
There was a joke revolving around a redhead’s glass eye, a
diatribe on why people under 30are wimps and a collection of quotes
for Valentine’s Day.
Every once in a while, my mother goes on a forwarding spurt, funneling me often more than a dozen funny or touching or raunchy e-mails in a week, and this time was no exception.
There was a joke revolving around a redhead’s glass eye, a diatribe on why people under 30are wimps and a collection of quotes for Valentine’s Day.
But the thing that caught my eye was an e-mail titled “Heart attack and stroke.”
Purported health updates circulated through e-mail are generally so blatantly untrue they’re funny, but this one I wasn’t entirely sure about.
The e-mail advised readers of what they should do if they thought a loved one was having a stroke, or what they themselves could do if they were suffering a heart attack.
It suggested that, in the event of a possible stroke, loved ones ask the person to smile, raise their arms and speak a complete sentence.
If one side was significantly weaker than the other, or the person was unable to complete the task, they were advised to call 911.
Those suffering heart attacks were advised to call 911 and to also begin breathing deeply and coughing. Supposedly it would contract the heart.
I wanted to know what from the e-mail was true and what wasn’t, so I did what anyone – okay, what anyone who writes a health column – would do. I called a cardiologist.
For once, it turned out, the advice was about half right, according to Dr. Martin Bress, an internal medicine and cardiology specialist at Hazel Hawkins Hospital in Hollister.
“The most common strokes are what’s called thrombotic, where a blood clot forms and breaks loose somewhere in the system, then gets stuck down the line,” said Bress. “Less common are hemorrhagic strokes, where there’s actually bleeding in the brain, which is more ominous.
Those can feel just like a headache, but the ones that are thrombotic tend to affect the right side of the body and the right side of the face.”
So, Bress said, by asking a loved one to smile and raise his or her arms above the head, you’re actually testing and comparing that person’s motor skills.
Asking that person to repeat a complete sentence tests to see whether he or she has lost circulation to an area of the brain known as Broca’s area, a section commonly associated with language abilities.
Loss of blood flow to the area can cause slurring, jumbling of words or the complete loss of verbal skill, though comprehension is not normally affected.
“Most people will understand the directions they’re being given even if they can’t speak or if it comes out as mumble,” said Bress, who cautioned that, even if symptoms were not severe, it is best to go into the hospital right away.
Many life-saving measures that are also able to help sufferers lead lives of greater quality after heart attack or stroke are only effective in the first two hours after the onset of symptoms.
For instance, noted Bress, many times people in the United States will stay home rather than going to the hospital because they think symptoms will dissipate, a wait that can be especially deadly in the case of heart attack.
“The sort of classic symptom for a heart attack is a terrible pain in the chest that radiates down the left arm and up toward the jaw, but a lot of times people think the chest pressure, sweating and shortness of breath are just gas or a whopping case of indigestion,” said Bress. “In the Roman stories of feasts, there was always someone who died from eating too much and chasing the girls. He didn’t die of indigestion. He died of a heart attack, but the symptoms are very close.”
Coughing cannot contract the heart, said Bress, so a person’s best bet if he or she cannot reach help is to call 911 and take an aspirin.
Heart disease is on the decline as a major killer among Americans, but is still very common, especially among those older than 50, with high blood pressure or who suffer from diabetes.
Hopefully, you’ll never need to use this information, but if you do it’s better than inducing a case of hyperventilation en route to the hospital.
