Pediatric Stroke Awareness Month

Jake's walking is slowly getting back to "normal." We got rid of the arm crutch last Wednesday. He was leaning on it way too much and putting even less weight on his left foot and it was making his form much worse. At PT Wednesday, his therapist had him start using a walker pretty much full-time so he would have equal support on both sides. He wasn't very happy about it and said to me "I'm not a 90 year old," but his walking looked so much better with it. I felt so bad for him having to take it to school, but he did it. By Friday afternoon when he got off the bus and walked to the car without the walker, he was looking much more even instead of the step/hop gait he'd had most of the week when he had no assistance.

The other big development this week was coming to the decision with his therapists we aren't going to do this round of Botox. He was due for his three month treatment this week and despite all the gait issues, everyone feels his muscle tone is doing ok. We're going to give it some time to see if he can keep working through it without the Botox. Botox essentially numbs the muscle so it can relax and while it definitely serves a short-term purpose, it makes it hard to retrain the muscles to relax on their own. It's also not something we want to use as a long-term treatment. 

Pediatric Stroke Awareness Month
May is Stroke Awareness Month as well as more specifically, Pediatric Stroke Awareness Month. In light of all that has happened this past 11 months, I wanted to share some of the things I've learned. To be honest, it's far more than I ever wanted to know and I'm surprised how little I knew before Jake's stroke. I honestly didn't know children could even have a stroke. Anyone I knew who had one was much older or had heart disease. I also didn't know that babies, even unborn, could have a stroke. Tough way to have to find out about these things.

• Pediatric stroke affects 25 in 100,000 newborns ((pre-birth - 30 days old) and 6 in 100,000 children under 15 years of age.
• 60% of strokes occur in boys.
• Stroke is the sixth leading cause of death in children. 
• Recognition of stroke is often delayed or even missed in most children.

Types of stroke

• Ischcemic stroke - brain injury caused by blockage of blood flow in an artery caused by a blood clot or narrowing of the artery. (most common type of stroke)
• Intracranial hemorrhage - Bleeding in the brain that leads to brain injury. Arteries and other small blood vessels create pathways throughout the brain that bring blood from the heart. If these arteries or blood vessels weaken and burst, they can cause a hemorrhagic stroke. (This is what Jake had)

Symptoms

In Newborns and Infants:

- seizures

- extreme sleepiness

-  tendency to use only one side of their body

In Children & Teens:

  Remember F.A.S.T.

-  Face drooping

-  Arm weakness

-  Speech difficulty

-  Time to call 9-1-1

 Other signs:

-  severe headache, vomiting, sleepiness, dizziness & coordination problems

Possible Effect of Stroke

Each person experiences stroke differently, but typically, children experience the same effects as adults do. The most common effects are:

• Hemiparesis, or weakness on one side of the body
• Hemiplegia, or paralysis on one side of the body
• One-sided neglect, or ignoring the weaker side
• Aphasia, or difficulty with speech and language
• Dysphagia, or trouble swallowing
• Vision problems
• Changes in mood
• Cognitive changes, or problems with memory, judgment and problem solving
• Behavior or personality changes

We'll be wearing purple in honor of International Pediatric Stroke Awareness Week which is May 3-9. If just one person learns something that can help get a child early treatment, that's a win in my book.