Hello bellepepper, my heart goes out to
you and your familly in such a difficult
heart breaking time in your life.
it
brought tears to my eyes to read your
plea, I felt I had to search you out some
information since you mentioned that it
was like she had a stroke. Please
check out this site
www.Sickkids.On.Ca
it has a multitude of child illness
informations. (the site is sickkids with
lower case letters but for some reason
this program keeps putting a capital s on
the site.) my prayers are with you all.
In toddlers, ear infections can spread to
a vein in the skull, causing a stroke.
And in school-age kids, hockey injuries
and some diseases are sometimes causes.
When a child does have a stroke, the
initial symptoms can be subtle and the
condition difficult to diagnose
children aren't as hard-wired in their
neural connections as adults are, which
means they have the potential for better
recovery
stroke is usually associated with diseases
or problems that increase the tendency of
the blood to form clots. In some
children, blood clotting disorders are
inherited (i.E. Are genetic). For
example, children with sickle-cell anemia
(an inherited blood disorder) are at
increased risk of stroke.
In other cases, the blood clotting
disorder may be associated with another
disease or medical treatment the child is
receiving. For example, some
congenital heart defects increase the
tendency of the blood to form clots in the
chambers of the heart. These clots can
enter the blood stream and travel to the
brain, where they cause a stroke. In
other cases, heart surgery or procedures
may trigger the formation of clots
weakness - sudden weakness, numbness or
tingling in the face, arm or leg.
Trouble speaking - sudden temporary loss
of speech or trouble understanding speech.
Vision problems - sudden loss of vision,
particularly in one eye, or double vision.
Headache - sudden severe and unusual
headache.
Dizziness - sudden loss of balance,
especially with any of the above signs.
If a child experiences one or more of
these warning signs, seek immediate
medical attention. Unfortunately,
stroke is the last thing many parents and
doctors think about when a child has these
warning signs.
There is some evidence that some children
may recovery better from stroke than
adults. Recovery is better if the
child received immediate medical attention
and has access to a good rehabilitation
program. Doctors suspect that a
child’s brain is more flexible than an
adult’s. As a result, other parts of a
child's brain may take over the function
previously controlled by a damaged area.
When the canadian paediatric stroke
registry followed 150 children who had
stroke for an average of 1.6 years they
found:
• only 8% of the children died (half of
the deaths were due to the underlying
disease, such as cancer)
• over half (54%) had no apparent lasting
effects from their illness
• 38% of children were left with a
neurological deficit. In 80% of the
cases, the problem was in moving or making
movements (motor deficit). Only small
proportions of the children were left with
cognitive problems, developmental delays,
or trouble speaking or understanding
speech.
The registry also showed that 35% of the
children had been given "clot-busting"
drugs. Although considered
experimental, none of the children treated
with the "clot busters" died or had
complications because of their
treatment.
Research
the canadian paediatric ischemic stroke
registry, based at mcmaster university
(hamilton, ontario) has been established
to collect information on how and why
strokes occur in children. The only
registry of its kind in the world, it is
giving doctors and parents a better idea
of how to prevent, treat and recover from
paediatric stroke. The heart and
stroke foundation supports ground-breaking
research on paediatric stroke, heart
conditions that can trigger stroke and
blood clotting disorders in children.
Georgie
