Maryland's Health Matters - Charles Regional - Fall 2016 - 8

room, I could see a team of medical
Chris Bryan,
pictured with his
wife, Gayle, is the
pastor at Kneeling
Point Wesleyan
Church.

people in there," Gayle Bryan remembers. She could only see the back of Dr.
Mann's head, but "I'll never forget his
voice," she says. While he gave instructions to the team, he also kept explaining to Gayle what they were doing.
"It was just amazing the way they were
all doing what they needed to do to
get him stabilized."

TEAMWORK TO BEAT
THE CLOCK
The flurry of activity Bryan's wife witnessed on the day of his stroke was part
of a well-orchestrated plan to make sure
every potential stroke patient gets fast,
effective treatment. "We've worked
to eliminate every single second that's a
delay of care," Dr. Mann says.
As soon as someone with stroke symptoms is on the way by
ambulance or walks
into the Emergency
Department, a "code
death. "Just like in heart attack we say

down on the window of time he could

stroke" is called. "The

'time is muscle,' in stroke patients, time

receive tPA medication. While his wife

whole team is poised

is brain," Dr. Ferraro says. "The longer

was still driving to the hospital, the

the wait to treat a stroke patient, the

ambulance had called ahead to notify

poorer their outcome will be."

the stroke team at Charles Regional

The only FDA-approved medication
to break up the blood clot in the brain

that Bryan was on his way.
"Once I was in the doorway of Chris'

Mohammed
Abu-Realh, RN

and ready to act
fast," says Mohammed
Abu-Realh, stroke

program coordinator and director of
nursing at Charles Regional.

that causes the majority of strokes is
called tPA (short for tissue plasminogen
activator). The benefits of this powerful
"clot-busting" drug are greater than the
risks for only a few hours after stroke
symptoms begin (typically three hours,
but sometimes four and a half hours in
certain cases). Even within that treatment window, quicker is better, Dr.
Mann explains. "We really want to give
tPA as soon as possible because the
risks are much lower and the benefits
are much greater."
From the moment Bryan's left side
went numb, the clock started counting

MARYLAND'S HEALTH MATTERS

Don't Try to Sleep It Off
For your doctor to decide if you qualify for stroke medication,
you need to know as precisely as possible when your symptoms
started. "If you wake up at 3 a.m. with stroke symptoms, they
may have started hours before," says Emergency Department
physician Darin Mann, DO.
The truth is, a lot of stroke patients admit that they decided
to go to sleep and see if things would get better on their own.
"Don't go to bed if you're having worrisome symptoms," Dr. Mann
says. Call 911 right away.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Maryland's Health Matters - Charles Regional - Fall 2016