9-yr-old suffers arterial stroke, recovers

New Delhi: In a rare case, a nine-year-old-girl suffered an acute arterial stroke on May 1. The girl was in her school when she had the stroke. It was her teacher who first noticed that something was wrong with the girl.  

The teacher said the girl wasn’t able to lift her school bag and to top it, she fell down as she was unable to even lift her leg.

The girl’s exasperated father said, “The teacher, instead of giving her medicine and telling her to lie down, called me. I rushed my girl to a local hospital where an MRI scan revealed acute infarct of right frontoparietal stroke.”

In layman’s terms, it was cerebral infarction which happens with the narrowing or blockage of the arteries and when specific areas of the brain stop receiving blood supply.

The girl was immediately taken to the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital within the “golden period” and was treated successfully.

The golden period refers to the brief window of about four hours during which if a person is treated for stroke, their chances of survival rise considerably.

“At an age when most children don’t even know the meaning of stroke, this nine-year-old girl fell victim to an acute arterial ischemic stroke,” said Dr Priyadarshini Pal Singh, HoD, Emergency.

“When the child was admitted, she was presenting the symptoms of acute onset of weakness of left upper and lower limbs. MRI and and angiogram were done again to know the cause and extent of problem. The diagnosis was undeniable,” the doctor added.

The child was shifted to paediatric ICU where her complete blood profile was done.

“Her partial thromboplastin time (PTT) or activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) were normal, as were her platelet count, coagulation profile, plasma fibrinogen. Abnormal Homocysteine level was found which indicated the risk of developing stroke. Echo was suggestive of small patent foramen ovale (PFO), which is a hole in the heart,” Dr V.B. Gupta, senior consultant, paediatric neurologist, Apollo Hospital, said.

“We decided to start the treatment with TPA in therapeutic doses over one hour. Passive limb physiotherapy was started to maintain the blood flow, he added.

Slowly, the child became stable with flickering movement and slight pain in the left lower limb. She is recovering now.