Something REALLY New to Help Stroke Survivors

I'm just taking a guess. I never met him. But Robert Thornton is probably one of those guys that you meet every so often because, as it turns out, he is a humanitarian. Sharon, his girlfriend, had a stroke on April 4, 2012, and as a result of the stroke, developed, among other things, a subluxed shoulder, common in stroke survivors. She had severe pain that was caused by the misaligned shoulder. First, a little history on subluxation so you can understand what Robert did.

Taking all the medical mumbo-jumbo out of the picture, the shoulder joint, a ball and socket formation, is the most flexible of any joint in the body. It also makes the shoulder the most unstable joint. In a subluxed shoulder, popular wisdom, in plain English, explains that the shoulder joint's failure of the socket to completely cover the ball of the upper arm bone makes the shoulder reliant on soft tissue instead to hold it in position. When the upper arm comes substantially out of the shoulder socket, it allows for less mobility, and subluxation results.

With a shoulder subluxing, the patients sometimes feel a popping sound as the ball joint moves out of the socket then returns. Some patients feel their arms losing feeling. Others get a sense if they raise their shoulders too high, the shoulder will pop out permanently which, of course, it sometimes does. When a shoulder subluxes, pain occurs and is positioned primarily in the shoulder joint. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) says most of shoulder subluxations happen because the shoulder slips forward, starting the patient's pattern of avoiding motions which give pain to the patient, thus resulting in weakness for those motions the patient can't--or won't--do anymore.  The AAOS says the shoulder will often sense numbness and tingling, traveling down the arm.

Visual signs are often these:
     * Swelling or bruising over the spot where the injury occurred
     * Less rounding of the subluxed shoulder as compared to a healthy shoulder
     * Dimpling below the bony protrusion at the top of the shoulder

Even if you can't interpret the visual signs that accompanies subluxation as needing HELP, there is the pain, and that's where Robert comes into the picture. This excerpt comes from Robert, and I offer it to you, coming right from the man's heart:

"The ER ...man what a scary place...not much compassion there. They deal with death every day and it shows they do what they can, but honestly, how would you like the job of trying to calm down family members of a patient on the brink of death...that's gotta be hard on your heart and soul. Sharon was in ER for a week. The doctors told us not to expect her to recover and said if she did recover at all, she would have total loss of her left side. Ok, with that news shocking the family, what was I supposed to do? This is my soul mate and I knew if I gave up, she would, too. There was no way I was going to let that happen. So first things first. I taught her to eat so they wouldn't put a feeding tube in her (tough fight there they kept ordering a tube and I kept telling them to wait. I knew she would eat on her own given the chance). Ok, now we're off to recovery center.

"In-patient rehab....These people do great things and they’re very positive and encouraging (what a refreshing change). The therapy she received helped her leg, her speech,her eating and swallowing, just about everything but her arm and hand...this is what I would like to talk about. I have been by her side since her stroke every therapy she got. I repeated it in her hospital room and her recovery was amazing, but they couldn't really do anything for her arm (mainly due to the pain). I asked them about a sling to hold her arm and shoulder joint in place (they said the pain and swelling was from pinched nerves in the shoulder). They said that she just had to work through the pain because there was no sling that really worked for the sublux shoulder. My answer to that: bull****.

"I watched her therapist hold her arm in place and her pain went away. I started searching for a sling ...and sadly they were right. Every sling I found caused more harm than good...and they wouldn't let me put any on her. (They did try the givemore sling, but it just didn't work. Every time she bent her arm, her shoulder fell down). Well, I didn't stop there.

"When she got home, she had in-home care and I started making different slings while her therapist kept telling me what was wrong with each sling (I made 10 kinds). Finally, they started liking where I was going with number 11. When I finished it, her therapist loved it. Her pain level dropped to where she no longer takes pain meds. The recovery of her arm jumped 80% in two weeks. Now, all of her doctors and the therapist require her to wear the sling I made.

"All of her doctors and therapists kept telling me to patent the sling and get it out to the public because there were so many people out there that needed one. So I applied for a patent and put together a workshop to make them.

"Over the years, many people have tried to make an arm support for patients with shoulder problems. For a sling to meet the needs of the patient, it has to conform to criteria considerations such as subluxation reduction, easily worn/put on, ability to wear under clothing comfortably, weight distribution, freedom of movement of both upper and lower parts of the arm while keeping the shoulder in place. Our sling meets all these requirements.

"My sling starts with a comfortable arm support. I start with an elastic arm band with non-elastic cloth ends with elastic hook and loop fastening system for arm size and comfort . This is placed over the bicep of each arm. Each arm support has a strap permanently mounted on the top front and one strap grommet and one quick-release buckle mounted to the top rear.

"The straps are made of semi-elastic material. The top 2 straps start in front of the shoulder and go over the shoulder, crossing each other in the top middle of the back, and the strap from the top front of each arm support connects to the opposite arm support at a point at the top of the arm pit in the back at the buckle so you can adjust the upward pull on the injured shoulder. The third strap runs across the back from arm pit to arm pit with a hook and loop adjustment for lateral support of the shoulder joint."

If you, or somebody you know, has a subluxed shoulder, go to this site:

http://www.subluxsling.org/

Robert, who communicates through the therapist, says it might help me restore my arm somewhat. My sling arrived a few days ago and it's already working!

Babies and Strokes

This is a brain. It is also the unfortunate outcome of a baby whose mother experimented with cocaine, resulting in a premature birth and a bleed in the baby's brain. A bleed in the brain means the baby had a stroke. Hey! Wait a minute! Babies and strokes don't go together, or do they?

Note: for all you baby-makers out there, I'm not trying to scare you from having kids. This post is just a dose of reality.

You probably don't know the name Duncan Guthrie. He started a charity in 1952 for his daughter, Janet, who had polio, and he was determined to find a cure for the disabling disease. With money funded by the charity, research, in time, led to the first oral polio vaccine which wiped out new cases of polio in the UK. Now called Action Medical Research, the charity encompasses so many other afflictions, and that leads us to babies and strokes.

In 2009, Action Medical Research estimated at least one baby out of 2,300 in the UK born full-term were victimized by a stroke. These strokes often were unexpected at the time of birth or before, i.e. some developing babies had strokes in utero. The researchers didn't know if the babies, who are now barely three years old, had trouble using language because they hadn't matured to the point where anybody could tell the difference between a three year old saying gibberish or not.

But of the 100 or so children in the study, the researchers are working feverishly to know how stroke affects their language skills. Magnetic Resonance Imaging, most commonly known as MRI, is administered to the child to watch how stroke affects different parts of the brain. Sometimes, the brain readjusts itself, said the researchers, especially in a newborn, to compensate for the section that was harmed. Known by the medical term as plasticity, the brain takes charge of the imperfect tissue with the good part of the brain. In fact, in the first 28 days of life, stroke is more common than after.

So the big question is, how do you know if the newborn had a stroke? Newborns most likely would show no signs of a stroke unless they have a seizure. Seizures symptoms include staring, rhythmic and spasmodic episodes in the face, arms, and legs, stiffening of muscle groups, and pauses in breathing. Generally, newborn stroke survivors show less movement on one side of their body. "Handedness," the term given when newborns favor one hand over the other, could be a symptom of stroke.  Parents often mistake this as meaning that the baby is advanced for his or her age. In healthy babies, handedness appears at about 12 months.

According to the American Heart Association Journal (AHAJ), the incidence of stroke in newborns in the first 28 days is very elevated compared to infancy and childhood years. The following can happen at a rate of 1 in 4000 newborns:

     * Arterial Ischemic Stroke (where blood flow is stopped in an artery to the brain by a clot)
     * Sinovenous Thrombosis (where a clot appears in one of the veins in the brain)
     * Hemorrhagic Stroke (where an artery bursts in the brain).

After the newborn period, the risk of stroke decreases significantly and remains low until post-55.

This is what can happen in pregnancy and childbirth:
     * Proteins travel from mother to fetus, which aids in clotting. But if there's too much clotting, a
        stroke for the baby is more likely.
     * At the point of labor and delivery, childbirth can result in physical stress on the baby’s head with
        the arteries and veins in the baby’s head leading to clots and stroke.
     * Newborns have twice as many red blood cells as an adult which can lead to excessive clotting.
       (Stroke can sometimes be prevented by giving newborns blood transfusions the blood is diluted
       with saline).
     * Dehydration can cause the blood to clot, some signs of which are a dry mouth, dry skin, and
        fewer than six wet diapers a day.

A number of factors that can put a newborn at risk for stroke include:
     * If the newborn has a hole in the heart, it facilitates a clot going up to the brain.
     * If there is a genetic history of clotting problems, the risk of stroke increases.
     * If serious infections such as sepsis exist, clotting may result.
     * If the mother takes an illicit drug, like cocaine or heroin, a stroke, albeit needless, may occur.

For expectant mothers, if clotting disorders are part of your genetic history, tests can be done in-utero ahead of time to help the baby's outcome. All expectant mothers should eat nutritiously, stop cigarette smoking, and avoid dehydration.

Here's the bottom line: there’s not much research so far on how to treat strokes in children, including newborns and fetuses.

An excerpt from a blog, Raising Arizona Kids, tells one story of thousands:

"Chandra Whitfield, of Mesa, learned just a few months ago that her son, Joey, suffered a stroke in-utero.

At first, Joey was an easy going, happy, typical baby, welcomed by his parents and brother Daniel (3 ½).

But at around 8 weeks, Chandra began noticing a few things about Joey that seemed different from her experience the first time around with Daniel. She mentioned her concerns to Joey’s pediatrician at the next well check.

The doctor diagnosed Joey with tortocollis, which can occur while a baby grows in the womb if the muscles or blood supply to the fetus’ neck become injured.

He prescribed some stretching exercises and suggested that Chandra put toys on on Joey’s left side to encourage him to turn his head.

That helped, but at four months, Chandra begin to notice that Joey wasn’t reaching for toys with both hands- just his right hand.

At his six month well check, he still didn’t seem to be using his left arm and hand – and Chandra decided to trust her 'mommy gut' feeling that something wasn’t right.

She asked the pediatrician for a referral to a pediatric neurologist, just to rule out that anything was seriously wrong.

Finally, Chandra and her husband, Chris, received some tough news about their little boy.

Joey was diagnosed with left-sided hemiparesis (weakness on the left side of the body) due to a stroke in-utero. An MRI followed and confirmed the diagnosis.

Since the diagnosis, Chandra says she feels 'as if a fire has been ignited in me.' She began working to raise awareness about childhood stroke.

She and her family have walked in the Stroke Walk, a fundraising event.

She’s been selling purple awareness bracelets and donating the funds to the Children’s Hemiplegia and Stroke Association (CHASA), she’s got plans for a website, and volunteers for CHASA.

Chandra also sent a letter to Governor Jan Brewer requesting that May 7 be declared 'Childhood Stroke Awareness Day.' Here are Chandra and Joey on the day just a couple of weeks ago when they received the news that the request was granted, and more.

Arizona now joins several other states in declaring May as Childhood Stroke Awareness Month. CHASA hopes to build a grassroots effort to add more states to the list.

"Joey is a year old now and doing well. He works with a physical and occupational therapist to help strengthen his left side. The testing and therapy will continue, but so will Chandra’s will to get the word out to others to raise awareness—and to grow a community. Because what Chandra says has helped the most is the connection she’s made with other parents of children who have suffered stroke in-utero."

My God. Babies and strokes. It happens. And now you know.