Child strokes going ‘undiagnosed’
Posted by seumasach on July 2, 2008
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Up to five children a day in the UK are suffering from undiagnosed strokes, new research suggests.
Experts from Bristol University are studying what they say is a “striking lack of public and medical awareness” of childhood strokes.
This condition is thought to be as common as some cancers.
The scientists will monitor victims from the south of England for a year after their first attack in order to learn more about the symptoms.
The average time between the onset of symptoms to presentation to a medical professional, for children suffering a stroke, is five-and-a-half hours.
This means many young stroke sufferers do not benefit from life-saving treatments because they are are diagnosed too late.
The Study of Childhood Stroke (SOCS) will see a collaboration between paediatric neurologists, physiotherapists and radiologists.
Lack of funding
Dr Finbar O’Callaghan, from Bristol University, said that “at least” one child per day has a stroke in the UK “and it may be as high as five per day”.
He added: “Stroke in children is not as rare as many people may believe.
“One of the main reasons we don’t know the exact number of children having strokes is that no national registration system exists as it does for childhood cancer.
“There is a striking lack of public and medical awareness of stroke in children and this manifests itself in the amount of funding available for research.
“Childhood stroke may be as common as childhood cancer, and in many ways equally devastating to families, but in the last year in the UK the charitable income for childhood cancer was £224m versus £3m for childhood stroke.”
Stroke was given as the cause of death for nearly 1,500 children between 1979 and 2000.
Emma Hinton’s daughter Amber was left partially paralysed after she had a stroke.
She told the BBC: “Her face had completely dropped on the left side and a couple of my friends said, ‘You need to take her to hospital. She’s had a stroke.’
“And I was a bit sort of like, ‘Oh, don’t be silly. That’s for older people.’
“It sounds really awful. She had an MRI scan within that night by the time we got up there so she received immediate treatment for it.”
In These New Times 
Maureen said
I hope the following is of interest to your readers.
When my grandson was born four years ago he was given the Vitamin K injection. 5 hours later he had a stroke, severe brain bleed and convulsions for over 24 hours. Research of this vaccine led me to believe there was a relation between the vaccine and strokes in newborn.
If you are interested, please look on the “informed parent” website. Vaccinations are indeed harmful to children and it also appears that Vit K can produce strokes.
As a homeopath, and childminder for 12 years, I have seen many children who were vaccinated with DPT develop coughs, croup, asthma and when treated with the DPT homeopathic remedy this cleared the symptoms. Sometimes the children had these symptoms for many months before a parent would decide it was time to give homeopathic remedies a chance. It worked every time.
Vera Scheibner has researched vaccinations for many many years and sees strong links between SIDS and vaccinations. She says children can become ill, some even die, within 6 weeks of a vaccine being administered. Doctors don’t register side effects after a vaccine has been given.
There is a Vaccine damage payment available by the government. Why do they not tell us that they accept liability in some cases?
Action you can take?
Ask your doctor to read out any precautions which are listed on the delivery box containing any vaccine. Also there is a form you can request they sign saying the vaccine is 100% safe.
Parents are indeed vulnerable and need to inform themselves. Being a responsible parent means arming yourself with information and taking the action you feel is the safest option, not neessarily the one you are told is the safest.
Please Inform yourself not just about children’s vaccinations but flu, pneumonia etc. check it all out.
Maureen