Young stroke survivor calls for greater awareness<\/a><\/p>\nYoung stroke survivor calls for greater awareness and education.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“What’s going to happen? When’s it going to get worse?”<\/p>\n
Ms Reidy was in hospital for 10 days.<\/p>\n
“I was thankfully not heavily impacted compared to a lot of people. The only impact I had was to my speech, my cognition was slowed down, and my balance,” she said.<\/p>\n
She said doctors were never able to determine the cause of her stroke, which she was told was common for survivors.<\/p>\n
Preventable emergencies<\/p>\n
Stroke Foundation chief executive Lisa Murphy says the Northern Territory, where Ms Reidy is based, has the lowest stroke awareness in Australia.<\/p>\n
“That’s really concerning,” she said.<\/p>\n
She said Indigenous residents, who make up a high proportion of the territory’s population, are at greater risk.<\/p>\n
“A study in the Alice Springs Hospital found strokes were three times more likely to happen [to Indigenous Australians] than non-Indigenous Australians, and also [more likely] to happen at a younger age, and more severely,” she said.<\/p>\n
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Lisa Murphy says the NT has the worst rates of stroke awareness in the country. (ABC News: Simon Tucci)<\/p>\n
The three most common symptoms of stroke are facial drooping on one side, an inability to lift both arms above the head, and slurred speech.<\/p>\n
But Dr Murphy said, as in Ms Reidy’s case, it was possible to suffer a stroke and not recognise the symptoms as stroke-related.<\/p>\n
“It does sometimes happen, because when somebody has a stroke, it affects any part of the brain, so it can have any effect,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It can be subtle \u2014 as little as general confusion or slurred speech that then resolves \u2014 as well. It’s not always obvious.”<\/p>\n
She encouraged people to familiarise themselves with the symptoms of stroke.<\/p>\n
When checking for signs of stroke, think FAST:<\/p>\n
F: Is the face drooping?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: Can they lift both arms?\u00a0<\/p>\n
S: Is their speech slurred?\u00a0<\/p>\n
T: Time is critical in an emergency<\/p>\n
“Know FAST signs of stroke and know that stroke is a medical emergency and to seek help immediately,” she said.<\/p>\n
She said 80 per cent of strokes were preventable.<\/p>\n
“There are a lot of things that will increase the risk factors for strokes. One of them is high blood pressure, another one is high cholesterol,” she said.<\/p>\n
The road to recovery<\/p>\n
During her recovery, regaining her mobility was a key driver for Ms Reidy, who was eventually able to go from wheelchair to cane to independent movement.<\/p>\n
She resumed her involvement with running group ParkRun as a volunteer, initially just to find community.<\/p>\n
“It became the highlight of my week and after a few months of that, I thought I now want to build up on the fitness,” she said.<\/p>\n
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Alison Reidy turned to athletics for a sense of community during her recovery. (ABC News: Tilda Colling)<\/p>\n
Soon after recovering some mobility, she started athletics and is now part of the NT’s Para Futures Program \u2014 a sports program for talented athletes with disabilities \u2014 \u00a0to help them find pathways in their sport.<\/p>\n
“By doing that, I can also help share an example to other adults who may acquire a disability and show it’s not too late,” she said.<\/p>\n
Her message to others is, if they experience stroke symptoms, get them checked.<\/p>\n
“Every stroke is different, even for the same person,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I would say to anyone, if you’re having any symptoms that are not right for you, just go and get it checked. What’s the worst that could happen?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Alison Reidy suffered a stroke at 38, she initially thought it was just a bad migraine. “Honestly,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[303636,64,63,48882,137,1297,8867,1098,303633,303634,303631,11617,303635,32017,32019,303632,4793],"class_list":["post-626664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-alison-reidy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fast","tag-health","tag-heart-health","tag-northern-territory","tag-nt","tag-para-futures-program","tag-parasport","tag-signs-of-stroke","tag-stroke","tag-stroke-awareness","tag-stroke-recovery","tag-stroke-survivor","tag-stroke-symptoms","tag-womens-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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