Contents:
- Medical Video: Heart Attack Awareness Drill
- Ambulance call or take it to the hospital immediately?
- Why do you have to use an ambulance?
- 1. Get to the hospital faster
- 2. More ambulance facilities
- 3. Providing first-line stroke drugs
- 4. Make sure the patient gets to the right hospital
Medical Video: Heart Attack Awareness Drill
Finding family members having a stroke certainly makes you panic and get tired. Without thinking, you might immediately want to take him to the hospital so that you can immediately deal with it. However, your other siblings actually suggest calling the ambulance immediately. Then, which steps should be taken as the handling of the fastest and minimal risk of stroke, immediately go to the hospital or an ambulance telephone? Find out the answer through the following review.
Ambulance call or take it to the hospital immediately?
A stroke can happen to anyone and at any time. This disease can occur when blood flow to the brain is blocked so that brain cells can die in just a few minutes. That is why strokes are also often referred to as brain attacks.
When one family member has symptoms of an initial stroke, perhaps what you have in mind is the fastest way so that the patient can get to the hospital immediately. For this reason, you may choose to take him directly to the hospital by driving your own car or asking for help from someone else to deliver.
Bringing stroke patients directly to the hospital is indeed the most important treatment for stroke. However, if done alone, this method is actually prohibited because it can endanger the health of stroke patients.
Although the goal is good, bringing stroke patients directly to the hospital can increase the risk of disability and death in patients. Handling the most appropriate stroke precisely with call the ambulance as soon as possible.
Why do you have to use an ambulance?
Stroke is a medical emergency that depends on time. The more time wasted, the greater the risk of brain damage in patients.
Without proper stroke management, symptoms of stroke in the form of weakness in one part of the body on the face, hands and feet will be difficult to restore as before. Over time, this condition can cause permanent damage and even threaten the patient's life.
There are four main reasons why the most important stroke handler is calling an ambulance, not taking the patient directly to the hospital.
1. Get to the hospital faster
You might think you can get to the hospital faster if you drive alone. In fact, as soon as you get to the hospital, everything will be in vain if the stroke patient does not get first aid while on the trip.
You also cannot predict road congestion that can hamper travel. While the ambulance has a special siren that can give a signal to other drivers to open the road. With an ambulance, stroke patients are guaranteed to get to the hospital faster.
2. More ambulance facilities
Ambulances certainly provide more complete facilities as first aid in stroke patients. As a first step, the ambulance team will monitor the patient's stroke symptoms during the trip.
Next, the team will monitor the patient's heart rate and blood pressure and ensure that they remain normal. Together with a stroke specialist, the ambulance team can even do blood tests and CT scan to the patient in the ambulance (in certain ambulances).
Equally important, the ambulance team will continue to communicate with the hospital so that the medical team knows that stroke patients will arrive in the near future. This makes it easy for the hospital to prepare all the equipment and medicines needed by the patient.
3. Providing first-line stroke drugs
Every minute wasted makes a stroke patient lose nearly two million brain cells. This means that every minute needs to be kept as much as possible so that the lives of patients can be helped.
That's why, you should immediately call an ambulance when a family member has a stroke. Stroke patients will be given first-line stroke drugs, such as alteplase, to help destroy brain clots. This drug is very useful for preventing long-term disability and reducing the risk of death in patients.
However, this stroke medication may only be given three hours after a stroke occurs. Now, here is the role of the ambulance team to ask a number of questions to the patient, one of which is when the symptoms of a stroke appear first.
A cerebrovascular specialist from the Cleveland Clinic, Zeshaun Khawaja, MD, MBA, revealed that this process is far more patient-saving than if you took her to a hospital alone.
4. Make sure the patient gets to the right hospital
When you want to go to a hospital by yourself, you may not know for sure which hospital provides complete stroke handling facilities. Again, it's important that you take the patient in an ambulance, rather than driving your own car to the hospital.
With the help of an ambulance, stroke patients will be taken to hospitals that have complete facilities to treat strokes. The faster the patient is treated early in the ambulance, the more likely the patient is to avoid the risk of long-term disability due to stroke.
Immediately call number 118 or 119 to call an ambulance. While for DKI Jakarta Province, you can call 021-65303118 as soon as possible if you need an ambulance service.
