By Ryan Cornell
WINCHESTER -- A new form of ultrasound therapy being tested in clinics across the world could lead to the next major breakthrough in treating strokes.
The therapy involves placing a ClotBust-ER headframe on the head of someone who has suffered a stroke. The device, shaped like a crown, sends sonogram pulses toward a blood clot while an anticoagulant known as tPA (tissue plasminogen activator) infuses. Doctors believe the pulses could help penetrate and break up the clot.
Because the treatment is in its clinical trial phases and is a double-blind study, the doctors don't even know whether the sonogram pulses are sent out or not, but one stroke patient undergoing the tests in Winchester, 79-year-old Dr. Jean Patrick, has gone through one miraculous transformation.
The morning of Oct. 23 started out like any other for Patrick. She woke up, had her breakfast and headed to Mountain View Christian Academy in Winchester, where she had started teaching music instrument lessons that month. She said good morning to Andy Fahey, an administrator at the school, and started teaching the lessons.
Patrick said she had finished playing the recorder and had moved on to teach her fourth grade student how to play the piano with both hands when she felt dizzy.
When the music often heard leaking out of the room was replaced by minutes of silence, Fahey said he knew something was wrong. He walked in and found Patrick slumped over a book with the wide-eyed student beside her. The teacher's words were slurred and her actions sluggish, unlike her usual energetic nature.
Ignoring Patrick, who said she was just tired and needed some rest, Fahey stayed by her side and had someone at the school call 911.
Patrick had suffered a stroke. And the doctors treating her that afternoon said she was incredibly fortunate to be cared for right away.
Dr. Jennifer Stanford, the director of clinical research overseeing the trials, said Patrick had suffered the stroke at 1:30 p.m., had entered the hospital at 2:15 p.m. and started getting tPA at 3:25 p.m. Stanford said there's only a three-hour window of opportunity for treating stroke patients with tPA.
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Swift treatment aids local stroke patient