Strokes Are Scary: Reduce Your Risk today!

Stroke is the leading cause of disability and the third leading cause of death in the United States. A stroke can not only be devastating it can be SCARY. That’s why it’s important to reduce your risks.


Smoking cigarettes and exposure to secondhand smoke greatly increases your risk of stroke and is one of the biggest risk factors that you CAN control. Consider these facts from the CDC:

• Cigarette smoking approximately doubles a person's risk for stroke.
• The U.S. incidence of stroke is estimated at 600,000 cases per year, and the one-year fatality rate is about 30%. (p. 393)
• The risk of stroke decreases steadily after smoking cessation. Former smokers have the same stroke risk as nonsmokers after 5 to 15 years.
• About 60 percent of American children ages 4-11 are exposed to secondhand smoke at home.
• On average, smokers die 13 to 14 years earlier than nonsmokers.

One way we can improve our environment in Oklahoma is to ask lawmakers to pass a law allowing cities to go 100% smoke-free. I know Strokes Are Scary but contacting your lawmaker isn’t. Sign up to be a You’re the Cure advocate today! Go to www.yourethecure.org

Strokes Are Scary: But they don’t have to be

If you look at the statistics they will scare you. Heart disease and stroke, the first and third leading causes of death for men and women, are among the most widespread and costly health problems facing our nation today, yet they also are among the most preventable. Cardiovascular diseases, including heart disease and stroke, account for more than one-third (33.6%) of all U.S. deaths.


795,000 strokes occur each year in the United States costing taxpayers $53.9 billion.

Having a stroke can be a life-changing event. Being prepared to prevent, respond to, and recover from all types of public health threats requires that states and localities have the right tools and knowledge available to them. Public health strategies and policies that support healthy living, encourage healthy environments, and promote a quality system of care are vital to improving the public's health and saving lives.

Don’t be scared! Become a You’re the Cure advocate and contact your lawmaker today! Find out how here http://www.yourethecure.org/

Strokes Are Scary! AHA advocates speak out

Recently the AHA was invited to attend Stroke of Courage, an event at St. Anthony Hospital, with special guest speaker Charlie Daniels. At the event we asked stroke survivors to tell lawmakers that Strokes Are Scary and changes need to be made to Oklahoma's system of care. 

Above is stroke survivor and AHA volunteer, Gary Bulmer, with his wife. 

Tobacco Use and Academic Achievement

Data presented from the 2009 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) show a negative association between tobacco use and academic achievement after controlling for sex, race/ethnicity, and grade level. This means that students with higher grades are less likely to engage in tobacco use behaviors than their classmates with lower grades, and students who do not engage in tobacco use behaviors receive higher grades than their classmates who do engage in tobacco use behaviors.


Please click here to read the full report.

Study Shows Link Between State Stroke Program and Number Of Designated Centers

May 25, 2011 (Washington, DC) —The size of a hospital and the population it serves, as well as being located in a state that has a program for stroke center certification, are among factors that contribute to whether an institution becomes a certified stroke center, a new study shows.


"The study demonstrates that having a state stroke program increases the number or percentage of stroke centers, and that's good thing," said lead study author Ken Uchino, MD, a stroke neurologist and staff physician at Cerebrovascular Center, Cleveland Clinic, in Ohio, and director, Vascular Neurology Fellowship Training Program. "One take-home message is that if all the states had such a program, we could probably increase the number of stroke centers across the country."

The study was presented during a poster session at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research 2011 Scientific Sessions in Washington, DC.

For this report, Dr. Uchino and his colleagues searched public databases for primary stroke centers certified by national organizations or state health departments. They calculated the proportion of primary stroke centers within hospitals in each state and analyzed the relationship to geography and state programs for stroke center certification.

Of 4521 acute care general hospitals across the country, 24% (1067) are stroke certified, they found. The percentages range from 0% to 98% among the 50 states and District of Columbia.

The researchers found that geography plays a role in determining the chances of a hospital being a certified stroke center. More stroke centers are located in the North and East and fewer in the South and West.

The size of the hospital in terms of the number of beds and admissions, as well as the population it serves, also positively influenced the rate of stroke centers across the country.

But another important factor is having a state health department program in stroke systems of care, which increases the likelihood of hospitals being a certified stroke center, they report. A median of 63% (range, 20% – 98%) of hospitals in the 8 states that have such a program are designated stroke centers compared with a median of 13% (range, 0% – 80%; P < .001) in states without such a program.

This indicates that even some small hospitals in areas that have a stroke program have designated stroke center status. "It means that this state program gives a little push or some incentive," said Dr. Uchino. "Some hospitals may not want to lose patients, and they go out of their way to get certified. I think it encourages even smaller hospitals to be certified."

Of the 8 states with a stroke program, 4 (Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York) are located in the Northeast, a region that tends to have more large urban areas than other parts of the country. However, not all of these 8 states are extensively urban; for example, Oklahoma "has a couple of big cities but is not a densely populated state," noted Dr. Uchino.

The other states with stroke programs are Texas, Florida, and Virginia.

Mounting research demonstrates that the mortality rate is lower in stroke centers compared with nonstroke centers. Dr. Uchino cited a recent paper (JAMA. 2011;305:373-380) that found that among patients with acute ischemic stroke, admission to a designated stroke center was associated with modestly lower mortality rates and more frequent use of thrombolytic therapy.

The current study also found that stroke centers that were certified by a state program without Joint Commission certification were smaller in terms of the number of beds compared with those centers certified by the Joint Commission.

Reached for a comment, Ralph Sacco, MD, professor and chairman of neurology, chief of neurology, Jackson Memorial Hospital, University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine, in Florida, and president of the American Heart Association, stressed that stroke centers are the most effective way to help improve outcomes for stroke patients.

"Some states have helped organize stroke systems better than others," he told Medscape Medical News. "In some states, stroke champions have helped push a stroke agenda, and in others, we have more work to do. The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association is trying to advocate through state legislatures for better organized stroke systems."

The number of stroke centers across the country has increased, but as the population ages, more will be needed to care for the growing number of people who will have a stroke, said Dr. Sacco.

"Too few patients with stroke get treated with acute stroke therapy, and only through improving our stroke systems of care can we improve the treatment of stroke," he said.

Dr. Uchino has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research 2011 Scientific Sessions: Poster 280. Presented May 14, 2011.

American Heart Association CEO Nancy Brown Applauds Benefits of Affordable Care Act for Heart Disease and Stroke Patients One Year Later

Washington, DC (March 17, 2011) - One year after the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, prospects for a healthier future have improved dramatically for millions of heart disease and stroke patients. As a result of reforms implemented over the last year, patients now have more options and protections for attaining quality, affordable health care. For example, preventive services have become a reality for many families and Medicare beneficiaries. Lifetime limits on coverage are now banned. Children with medical conditions can no longer be denied coverage and no American can be dropped from their coverage simply because they become sick. Annual wellness visits are now available for Medicare beneficiaries and prescription drugs are more affordable for many on Medicare. New Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plans also allow patients who have been denied coverage due to their medical condition to receive insurance coverage for a wide range of benefits including physician’s services, hospital care and prescription drugs. Although these plans may not be a feasible option for everyone, they are a pathway to insurance coverage for patients who cannot access coverage in the individual insurance market.
For those who need help navigating complex insurance issues, the new Consumer Assistance Programs (CAP) offer help to consumers who have problems with their coverage. Under the law, 30 states have received funding to implement the CAP programs which can be a useful resource for individuals who need insurance assistance. In addition, all young adults including those with congenital heart disease and other chronic conditions can continue to receive necessary treatment under their parents’ plan until age 26. These protections have already improved the health insurance marketplace for many Americans and more options will be made available as other reforms take effect in the coming years. With medical expenses for heart disease and stroke expected to triple by 2020, it’s more important than ever to implement reforms that provide access to affordable care for patients.
The anniversary of the Affordable Care Act should be a reminder of how far we’ve come in overhauling a broken health care system that too often doesn’t meet the needs of patients with heart disease or stroke. Let’s build on these accomplishments and continue to help all Americans gain access to quality, affordable care in their communities.
Visit www.heartsforhealthcare.org and http://www.healthcare.gov/.
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AHA/ASA Voluntter Talks About Her Stroke on Channel 4

Pam Bedford, an American Heart Association/American Stroke Association volunteer and stroke survivor recently spoke with Linda Cavanaugh of Channel 4 in Oklahoma City about life after her stroke and the Stroke Peer Visitation Program that she participates in.

The American Stroke Association is dedicated to prevention, diagnosis and treatment to save lives from stroke — America’s No. 3 killer and a leading cause of serious disability. We fund scientific research, help people better understand and avoid stroke, encourage government support, guide healthcare professionals and provide information to enhance the quality of life for stroke survivors. We were created in 1997 as a division of the American Heart Association. To learn more, call 1-888-4STROKE or visit strokeassociation.org.

Here is the Link: http://www.kfor.com/videobeta/09fb0547-ecfd-41a5-84a6-fdbf0f95e0d6/News/Healthcheck-Life-After-Stroke

AHA Releases New CPR Guidelines

A new order for CPR, spelled C-A-B


Please find an electronic press kit that includes a stats/fact sheet, chart of key changes, steps of CPR, CPR graphic and survivor stories at this link: http://www.pimsmultimedia.com/AHA_CPR/.



Statement Highlights:

When administering CPR, immediate chest compressions should be done first.

Untrained lay people are urged to administer Hands-Only CPR (chest compressions only).

DALLAS, Oct. 18, 2010 — The American Heart Association is re-arranging the ABCs of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in its 2010 American Heart Association Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care, published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Recommending that chest compressions be the first step for lay and professional rescuers to revive victims of sudden cardiac arrest, the association said the A-B-Cs (Airway-Breathing-Compressions) of CPR should now be changed to C-A-B (Compressions-Airway-Breathing).

“For more than 40 years, CPR training has emphasized the ABCs of CPR, which instructed people to open a victim’s airway by tilting their head back, pinching the nose and breathing into the victim’s mouth, and only then giving chest compressions,” said Michael Sayre, M.D., co-author of the guidelines and chairman of the American Heart Association’s Emergency Cardiovascular Care (ECC) Committee. “This approach was causing significant delays in starting chest compressions, which are essential for keeping oxygen-rich blood circulating through the body. Changing the sequence from A-B-C to C-A-B for adults and children allows all rescuers to begin chest compressions right away.”

In previous guidelines, the association recommended looking, listening and feeling for normal breathing before starting CPR. Now, compressions should be started immediately on anyone who is unresponsive and not breathing normally.

All victims in cardiac arrest need chest compressions. In the first few minutes of a cardiac arrest, victims will have oxygen remaining in their lungs and bloodstream, so starting CPR with chest compressions can pump that blood to the victim’s brain and heart sooner. Research shows that rescuers who started CPR with opening the airway took 30 critical seconds longer to begin chest compressions than rescuers who began CPR with chest compressions.

The change in the CPR sequence applies to adults, children and infants, but excludes newborns.

Other recommendations, based mainly on research published since the last AHA resuscitation guidelines in 2005:

During CPR, rescuers should give chest compressions a little faster, at a rate of at least 100 times a minute.

Rescuers should push deeper on the chest, compressing at least two inches in adults and children and 1.5 inches in infants.

Between each compression, rescuers should avoid leaning on the chest to allow it to return to its starting position.

Rescuers should avoid stopping chest compressions and avoid excessive ventilation.

All 9-1-1 centers should assertively provide instructions over the telephone to get chest compressions started when cardiac arrest is suspected.

“Sudden cardiac arrest claims hundreds of thousands of lives every year in the United States, and the American Heart Association’s guidelines have been used to train millions of people in lifesaving techniques,” said Ralph Sacco, M.D., president of the American Heart Association. “Despite our success, the research behind the guidelines is telling us that more people need to do CPR to treat victims of sudden cardiac arrest, and that the quality of CPR matters, whether it’s given by a professional or non-professional rescuer.”

Since 2008, the American Heart Association has recommended that untrained bystanders use Hands-Only CPR — CPR without breaths — for an adult victim who suddenly collapses. The steps to Hands-Only CPR are simple: call 9-1-1 and push hard and fast on the center of the chest until professional help or an AED arrives.

Key guidelines recommendations for healthcare professionals:

Effective teamwork techniques should be learned and practiced regularly.

Professional rescuers should use quantitative waveform capnography — the monitoring and measuring of carbon dioxide output — to confirm intubation and monitor CPR quality.

Therapeutic hypothermia, or cooling, should be part of an overall interdisciplinary system of care after resuscitation from cardiac arrest.

Atropine is no longer recommended for routine use in managing and treating pulseless electrical activity (PEA) or asystole.

Pediatric advanced life support (PALS) guidelines provide new information about resuscitating infants and children with certain congenital heart diseases and pulmonary hypertension, and emphasize organizing care around two-minute periods of uninterrupted CPR.

The CPR and ECC guidelines are science-based recommendations for treating cardiovascular emergencies — particularly sudden cardiac arrest in adults, children, infants and newborns. The American Heart Association established the first resuscitation guidelines in 1966.

The year 2010 marks the 50th anniversary of Kouwenhoven, Jude, and Knickerbocker’s landmark study documenting cardiac arrest survival after chest compressions.

A complete list of authors is on the manuscript.

Statements and conclusions of study authors that are presented at American Heart Association scientific meetings are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy or position. The association makes no representation or warranty as to their accuracy most manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available at www.americanheart.org/corporatefunding.


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Dr. Spradlin talks about life with a stroke on Channel 4

Dr. Janet Spradlin, immediate past president of the AHA SouthCentral Affiiliate Board, was recently interviewed on News Channel 4 in Oklahoma City about living life after a stroke. Dr. Spradlin did a great job so please take a few minutes to watch.

Link to story: http://www.kfor.com/videobeta/f706a2c2-3021-4e66-9d73-347c502a3b5f/News/Healthcheck

Oklahoma Heart Institute Recognized as a Top Get With The GuidelinesSM Participant

Oklahoma Heart Institute – Hospital, on the campus of Hillcrest Medical Center, has been recognized for its demonstrated commitment to using evidence-based guidelines to provide the best possible care to patients through the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With the GuidelinesSM (GWTG) program.
Introduced in 2000, GWTG helps hospitals close the gap between recommended treatment and actual treatment of heart patients. Hospitals implementing the quality improvement program generally see measurable results.
Each year, the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association recognize hospitals for their success in using GWTG to improve quality of care for heart disease and stroke patients.

Read MORE.

Lee Corso makes first public speaking appearence since stroke

ESPN Analyst, Lee Corso, visited Oklahoma yesterday to speak to a group about life after his stroke. Corso suffered a stroke in May 2009 and this was his first public speaking event since that day.

Consider these statistics from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association:

• Each year about 795,000 people experience a new or recurrent stroke. About 600,000 of these are first attacks, and 185,000 are recurrent attacks.
• On average, every 40 seconds someone in the United States has a stroke.
• When considered separately from other cardiovascular diseases, stroke ranks No. 3 among all causes of death, behind diseases of the heart and cancer.
• On average, every three to four minutes someone dies of a stroke.

You can see an interview with Corso on the Newsok.com website here.

White Paper Lays Out the Benefit of Registries

Patient registries—databases of clinical information critical to evaluating care processes and outcomes—can play a critical role in measuring quality and cost of health care, yet they are often limited by shortcomings in design and function. Using registries to advance performance measurement and ultimately improve care will involve finding solutions to what are currently common registry limitations.

The Robert Wood Johnson recently released a white paper that describes solutions for leveraging both administrative and registry data to make additional performance results available, as well as further increase registry use for performance measurement and other purposes.


Read the full report here.


At the beginning of this year a new rule took effect from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS Final FY 2010 Rule) which focuses on improving stroke patient care in hospitals. It requires hospitals submitting Medicare claims for stroke to let CMS know if they participate in a database registry for stroke care, such as that maintained by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke (GWTG-Stroke) quality improvement initiative.  
Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke puts the expertise of the American Stroke Association to work for hospital teams, helping to ensure that the care they provide to stroke patients is aligned with the latest scientific guidelines.
Most hospitals that implement the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke quality improvement program realize measurable results. It’s a difference that shows in the lives of patients and their families, in the satisfaction felt by caregivers empowered to do their best and in the financial health of participating hospitals.