Support group for stroke survivors starts in Idaho Falls

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) - At least one person will go to the Idaho Falls Community Hospital evey day presenting stroke-like symptoms. One hospital representative shared one in four people will be affected by a stroke or know someone affected by one.

As a result, the hospital has started a support group to help stroke survivors, their caretakers and other families.

A big part of the group is to educate and provide community resources and have fellow survivors support each other.

"For people who've had a stroke, it's a life-changing event. So being able to provide support, education, and resources to help people continue to improve work on disabilities and be able to function is as high a level as possible. That's kind of one of the reasons we started this group," said Anna Ruiz-Shackelford, a registered nurse and the Stroke and Stemi process improvement coordinator at Idaho Falls Community Hospital.

The group will meet on the second Tuesday of every month from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the hospital's board room. The group has a large personal connection to those who sponsor and support the group's efforts.

That connection comes through Dr. Gordon Dixon, who is a doctor at Mountain View Hospital and a stroke survivor.

Dr. Dixon shares how he first found out he had a stroke.

"I was 40 years old and went to Acapulco Mexico to go water skiing. I had a string to my head. Something was wrong. And then I had a stroke," Dr. Dixon said.

Dr. Dixon shared how as a result of his stroke he still struggles with Global Aphasia. Aphasia is a difficulty with language. It often presents as struggling to speak or even understand speech.

"I went to Salt Lake City, for the University of Utah, for one year of speech therapy. and my hand, and my leg for pt. After one year, I went to Michigan for speech therapy for five weeks. I then went to Canada for speech therapy for another five weeks. And then come to my house to Matt Stencens for speech therapy for four years," Dr. Dixon shared.

He says this support group will be a big help for him and other stroke survivors.

"For me to help the other patients. For aphasia, other patients who have aphasia," Dr. Dixon said.

Dr. Dixon highly recommends anyone who's had a stroke or been affected by one attends the meetings. Dr. Dixon and his colleagues also shared some of the early warning signs of a stroke. Those warning signs can be found through the acronym BE FAST.

• B: "Is the balance of people are like off balance, losing their balance, feeling really dizzy, bumping into walls," Ruiz-Shackelford said.
• E: "Eyes that if they have any vision changes, blurred vision, double vision, sometimes even loss of vision in the right or left side or up up in the corners or down below in the visual field," Ruiz-Shackelford said.
• F: "Of course, is the face and the facial droop," Ruiz-Shackelford said.
• A: "Is the arms, so any weakness, usually one-sided arm or, leg," Ruiz-Shackelford said.
• S: "Speech starts becoming slurred or people have a hard time communicating, finding the right words," Ruiz-Shackelford said.
• T: "Time is of the essence," said Ruiz-Shackelford.

Ruiz-Shackelford says when it comes to strokes the sooner you can get into the hospital the quicker you can get into the right treatment.

"Ideally within 3 hours from onset of symptoms, you can go up to four and a half hours. If a person has had symptoms within 24 hours, sometimes there's still the potential of receiving advanced treatment for a stroke that's been, present for less than 24 hours. So early recognition of those symptoms and getting help, not putting that on the back burner, thinking, oh, it'll go away or it'll get better. It's like it's better to come in, be evaluated, haven't ruled out versus sitting at home for a while and then realizing it's too late for us to do anything aggressive," Ruiz-Shackelford said.