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Synopsis: Although considered uncommon by adult standards, stroke is more common in children than brain tumours and is among the top ten causes of death in children. Contrary to traditional views, it is now accepted that children don’t necessarily recover better than adults, with over half of survivors having long-term neurological and cognitive impairments.

The licensing of acute thrombolytic agents has transformed adult stroke care from prevention and rehabilitation to the implementation of emergency treatments to restore blood flow, thereby minimising extent of brain injury. However access to such treatments is time limited with improved outcomes only proven up to 6 hours following stroke. Four recent paediatric studies have shown the average time delay to paediatric stroke diagnosis is more than 24 hours. Children will not receive the same benefits as adults without strategies to improve recognition and timely diagnosis of stroke.

Strategies in adults that have been implemented in the prehospital and emergency department settings to reduce time delays and improve access to hyper acute therapies will be discussed. Data will be presented on research currently being conducted at RCH to better understand reasons for delayed diagnosis and the development clinical stroke recognition tools to improve accuracy of stroke diagnosis in children.

Speaker:

Dr Mark Mackay is a Paediatric Neurologist at the Royal Children’s Hospital. He has honorary research appointments at MCRI and the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. He established the RCH paediatric stroke program; the only one of its kind in Australia. He is currently completing a PhD focusing on strategies to improve recognition, assessment and acute management of childhood stroke.