Stroke – babies can have it, too.

Science-mom — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:15:27 +0000

This is not to scare parents out there. This is for your awareness.

The American Heart Association (AHA) issued a scientific statement on the management of stroke in infants and children last month. According to AHA, the risk of children and adolescents from age zero to 18 years to have a stroke is 10.7 per 100,000 children. This is definitely much lower than the incidence of adult stroke. But that doesn’t mean we can simply take it for granted

Childhood stroke is very different from adult stroke and the differences are presented in the table below:

	Adult Stroke	Childhood Stroke
Type	80 to 85% are ischemic stroke due to blood clot; the rest are hemorrhagic	55% are ischemic
Symptoms	Check out the 5 early signs of adult stroke given by American Stroke Association	Seizure is the most common symptom. About 10% of baby seizures are due to stroke.
Treatment	tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA, ?clot buster?) should be administered within 3 hours of symptom onset	No stroke medication has been fully tested in infants and small children
Risk factors	Hypertension, obesity, lack of exercise, smoking among others	Sickle cell disease, congenital heart disease are the most common risk factors; also include infections, blood disorders, head trauma, autoimmune disease, and maternal factors
Prevention	Primary and secondary prevention through lifestyle changes	Primary prevention only possible when underlying condition is known. Main preventive measures are concentrated on preventing subsequent strokes after the first one

For more information about childhood stroke, parents can download this AHA brochure Let’s Talk About Children and Stroke.

Sources:

American Heart Association News Release

AHA Scientific Statement, Stroke. 2008;39:2644-2691

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Stroke – babies can have it, too.