Here is the text below. Is it valid or BS?:
IANAD/N, but symptoms like numbness/weakness/paralysis (typically on one side of the body) of the face, arm, or leg, and slurred speech are some of the common stroke indicators.
Some of these symptoms can persist for months or longer - years ago, I was assisting on a research study that was supposed to use healthy senior citizens for (non-invasive) brain research, and I identified one participant as quite possibly having had a stroke due to his repeated favoring of his left hand, even when asked to use his right to perform a task, and his major difficulties with verbal-related skills (like “write as many three-letter words as possible in 5 minutes” and coming up with 4 words). I told the researcher, who interviewed the patient; the patient admitted that his brother had suspected that he (patient) had a stroke months prior but he’d never gone to the doctor for it.
My father-in-law had a “mini-stroke” (transient ischemic attack) a year or so ago, and he exhibited partial paralysis/numbness of his left arm and left side of his face, and was slurring his speech.
I just redid my First Aid and CPR classes last weekend and the instructors did talk about something like this.
A stroke often causes weakness in one side of the body, so if the person’s face seems asymmetrical (one side drooping) and they are very weak in one side (when they try to raise both arms, one goes up and the other doesn’t) those are definite warning signs that you may be dealing with a stroke rather than a heart attack.
However, and this is a big however, if someone CAN do these things it does NOT mean that they are OK, just that it’s less likely to be a stroke. A heart attack can manifest with sudden chest pains and the victim could smile, raise their arms and speak…they still need immediate care even though they aren’t having a stroke.
So even though IANAD I’ll say that based on my knowledge this email is accurate but incomplete - it helps identify a stroke but doesn’t mention that the person could have an equally life-threatening problem (heart attack) with none of those symptoms.
The flaw in this thing is that it’s badly edited. It suggests you ask three simple questions–none of which are phrased as questions.
Rephrase as “ask the victim to perform three simple tasks…” and it’s good basic advice.
Or they could be phrased as questions. “Ask the victim if he can smile…Ask the victim if he can raise his hands…Ask the victim if he can speak a simple sentence.”
Naturally the badly edited version would be the one making the rounds.
Huh. I got this at work today - from a co-worker, not as spam. Everything after the anecdote is the same, but in mine, the stumbling woman was named Ingrid, and she died!!! The e-mail said that if she’d been “asked the three questions”, Ingrid “would be with us today” - a fact which is neither here nor there for me, since I don’t even know an Ingrid.
It’s not spam, it’s the Cincinnati Stroke Scale. If any are positive then we are concerned about a stroke and investigate it much further and more aggressively.
If it’s unsolicited and mass emailed it’s spam, regardless of content. I don’t know if this email counts as spam in the OPs case, but it’s certainly glurge.
While the email may contain good advice, it speaks in the language of glurgy spam. Angels, thanks to God, send this to everyone, dire possible consequencies if you ignore it, unattributed, sweeping statements.