When it comes to medical emergencies, few conditions strike as suddenly and as devastatingly as a stroke. Strokes occur when the blood supply to your brain is interrupted and they are life-threatening emergencies. If not treated quickly, there may be significant after-effects. The best known is hemiplegia (paralysis of one side of the body), but there are many others, such as speech disorders, sensory disorders, emotional disturbances and more. According to the World Stroke Organization, there are 12.2 million new strokes globally each year. What’s more, strokes concern us all, with one in four people over the age of 25 predicted to suffer a stroke during their lifetime.
World Stroke Day is observed every year in October to raise awareness of the serious nature and high rates of strokes and of how to prevent and treat them, and to ensure better care and support for survivors.
CERN’s Medical Service has teamed up with several local partners for an event on Thursday, 17 October, featuring interactive information stands, in order to help us all to better understand and prevent strokes.
The Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève (HUG) will be present to explain the warning signs of a stroke – using virtual reality goggles to create a tangible experience – and how strokes are managed in the emergency room.
The Medical Service team will offer you tips and tricks on mental health awareness and how to reduce stress, a key factor in the occurrence of strokes, such as how to use the cardiac coherence technique.
Medical staff will be on hand to measure your blood pressure, an important health indicator in stroke prevention.
Novae will host a stand to explain the impact of nutrition on our health and offer tips to better prevent strokes, while FRAGILE and the World Stroke Organization will cover specific information on the support and resources available through their networks.
Finally, the CERN Knowledge Transfer group will demonstrate two ongoing projects linked to strokes, namely the CAFEIN platform and the TRUSTroke project.
The campaign programme includes a fascinating lunchtime conference, with speakers from HUG discussing recent advances in stroke medicine. It will also feature testimonials from two young stroke survivors, Elise Mathy and Louis Gustin, who will share their personal experience in a talk entitled “Journey into aphasia”.
Visit the stands in Restaurant No. 1 and the foyer of Building 60 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and don’t miss the conference taking place from 12 noon to 1.30 p.m. in the filtration plant, Building 222. Sign up to attend the conference at this link.
For more information about strokes and the full campaign programme, go to: https://hse.cern/stroke.