Pediatric Stroke

A number of recent studies have called into question the cause of Pediatric Stroke or best known as the Pediatric Cerebral Vascular Accident. Many people would say “Children are too young to have a stroke this only happens to the elderly or very old” but when it comes to having a stroke age is not particularly important as it can happen during any point in a persons life. When most of us think of Pediatric Stroke everyone can agree that stroke on a child is inconceivable and rare. However, there is another way of comprehending Pediatric Stroke and that would be to understand the cause and the out come of the disease. According to Daniel S. Tsze and Jonathon H. Valente in their article “Pediatric Stroke: A Review”, defined stroke as “a neurological

Stroke may be somewhat unlikely to happen in children but when it does happen it has a significant impact because it can cause morbidity and mortality. Children’s strokes can present differently than adult. Also according to the “Pediatric Stroke: A Review”, “The reported incidence rate of both ischemic and hemorrhagic pediatric stroke ranges from 1.2 to 13 cases per 100,000 children under 18 years of age”(Tsze & Valente 1). Nevertheless, Pediatric CVA is more familiar than we can imagine, because of the misdiagnoses. In one report, it is said that 19 out of 45 children with a stroke did not obtain the accurate diagnosis until 15 hours to 3 months after initial presentation. However, another study demonstrated up to a 28-hour delay after inquiring medical attention from the beginning of the symptom and a 7.2-hour average delay after stroke appearance before any brain imaging was done (Tsze & Valente

They estimated the cost of pediatric stroke in the United States to $42 million in 2003, and the mean cost of acute hospital care was $20,927 per discharge, while the cost for ischemic stroke was $15,003, for intra-cerebral hemorrhage was $24,117, and for subarachnoid hemorrhage it was $31, 653.” (Perkins et al.). Pediatric stroke is costly, and the cost can evolve as high as those of an adult. The cost of pediatric stroke during admission, hospitalization and post stroke only tells us that cost can be massive as pediatric stroke can be of a lifetime cost, depending on its endurance and existence. The period and lifetime cost of a pediatric stroke can have a greater financial impact given the longer life anticipation for a child. “The cost to the family and the larger society can be used as one measure of the effectiveness of current and future treatments” (Perkins et al.). It is said that the estimate of the annual cost of a pediatric stroke hospitalization in the United States is about $42 million, however, this amount decreases in comparison with adult stroke. Either way you see it pediatric stroke is still very expensive, because from those children that survive stroke maybe about 50% to 80% will have permanent neurological damage such as hemiparesis