UAE to have 12 stroke treatment centres by 2019
More than 800 stroke patients treated at Rashid Hospital last year
As the incidence of strokes continues to soar in the UAE, the country is all set of have over 12 stroke management centres by 2019 spread throughout the country, said a top neurologist.
More than 800 stroke victims were treated at Rashid Hospital stroke centre last year, which is an indicator of the high incidence of stroke. Besides this the average age for occurrence of stroke is 45 in the UAE which is much lower than the world average of 60 years.
Speaking to Gulf News ahead of World Stroke Day (October 29), Dr Suhail Al Rokn, head of the Rashid Hospital Stroke Unit, said: “From the high numbers of stroke patients treated at Rashid Hospital alone, one can get an idea of how many more there are. Therefore, we have opened four centres in Dubai alone in the last four years, two in Abu Dhabi with additional two coming up next year and about three in northern emirates. From zero stroke management centres in 2014, by 2019, UAE will have 12 stroke management centres.”
Time and stroke protocols are very important in the management of stroke episodes, said Dr Mohammad Kaylani, consultant neurologist at Rashid Hospital stroke unit. “If a patient is brought to the ER within four hours of the episode and the Tissue Plasminogen Activator (TPA, a clot busting agent) is administered then it averts severe damage that the clot could cause by blocking off blood supply to the brain. So, any wasting away of muscle of loss of sensation a patient may have suffered recovers completely restoring movement and taking away the drooping of the mouth and hand that one typically sees in a stroke patient.”
Describing new medical interventions, Dr Al Rokn added: “Now some hospitals have introduced Thrombectomy (excising the thrombolysis or clot) for acute stroke intervention. We use early imaging and CT angiogram to get an idea of the occlusion in the brain which is subsequently removed surgically. ■