Hockey player suffers stroke, raises awareness

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Hockey player Kris Letang felt dizzy and nauseous in late January and doctors found he had had a stroke. This sudden loss of brain function can be caused by an interruption of the flow of blood to the brain or a rupture of blood vessels in the brain that cause neurons to die.

In Letang’s case, doctors found a small hole in his heart which may not have necessarily caused the stroke but could be linked. One quarter of all people have these holes. Most of them will never have any symptoms.

Three-quarters of all people who suffer strokes in Canada are over the age of 65. The highest risks are among people who have high blood pressure, who smoke, are obese, sedentary, have high cholesterol or diabetes.

Young Canadians risk of stroke increasing

However more young people are having strokes possibly because more are obese, sedentary and have high blood pressure and cholesterol. Now, only four per cent of strokes occur in those aged between 18 and 45. But not all strokes in young people are related to typical risk factors.
“In almost half of them we don’t know the cause at all,” says Dr. Rick Swartz, neurologist and spokesperson for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. “I see many high performance athletes, marathon runners, athletic healthy people at a young age who can have strokes from other causes.”

Know the warning signs

Letang has recovered and will continue to play hockey but he wanted to make his condition known so others could be aware of the warning signs. They include a sudden loss of speech, sudden weakness, numbness, or dizziness, sudden difficulty walking or a sudden headache.

This symptoms signal an urgent need to get to hospital immediately for treatment, says Swartz.

‘Time is brain’

“We say time is brain. Every minute two million neurons are being lost in an acute stroke.” Swartz adds not all strokes are blood clot strokes, some are bleeding strokes and doctors need to investigate quickly to determine the appropriate treatment.