The University of Kansas Health System is treating a total of 73 COVID patients today, 76 on Wednesday. Other significant numbers:
- 45 with the active virus today, 51 Wednesday
- 11 in ICU, 9 Wednesday
- 5 on a ventilator, 3 Wednesday
Key points from today’s guests:
Leslie Pratt, stroke patient
- When she was 8 months pregnant, her five-year-old came over to give her a kiss and her lips would not form correctly. When she stood up, her left leg gave out and she looked in the mirror to do a smile test and her left side was paralyzed. She immediately called 911.
- Was in the ICU at another facility when she was told they had to transfer to The University of Kansas Health System because they have a much higher level of care, they have more in depth special specialist and most importantly, they have a blood bank because they didn’t know what the outcome will be.
- Mom and baby are doing great now.
- Very grateful for the comprehensive care and is part of an upcoming case study about her situation.
- From every specialist, every nurse, every one that helps, she is very excited for this case study to come out and hopefully give other physicians a little more insight to help ensure the safest delivery as possible for the mother and baby.
Dr. Laith Maali, neurologist, The University of Kansas Health System
- Three out of 10,000 pregnancies have the potential for stroke in comparison to one out of 10,000 -- so almost three times the risk during pregnancy.
- A stroke is not the first thing on your mind during pregnancy, especially, being at a young age.
- It was very important that Leslie had knowledge about what a stroke looks like -- symptoms of facial droop, arm weakness, problem with speech, problem with vision.
- It was critical for Leslie to get medical care right away to allow the health care team to have more options and treatment.
- Treatment consists of multiple things including medication like clot busting medication that aim at dissolving the clot and also a procedure to pull the clot out with a catheter -- endovascular thrombectomy.
Craig Shipley, APRN, stroke nurse practitioner, The University of Kansas Health System
- There was a lot of coordination between the stroke service and the OB service and the critical care service teams at the Health System to make sure that the workup we did was comprehensive to find out why she had the stroke.
- Pregnancy created a little bit higher risk, so we want to make sure that we do a comprehensive workup to make sure we don't miss any other risk factors such as a heart problem or blood clotting difficulties.
- We do a very comprehensive workup and a lot of coordination with the OB team.
- The most significant risk factor for stroke is high blood pressure. That's the number one risk factor that we do that we look at. And one of the things that we really control once a patient comes to the hospital. High cholesterol is a risk factor. Diabetes is a risk factor. Obesity. Specific heart problems, atrial fibrillation specifically can be a risk factor. Problems with your heart beating efficiently in a heart failure situation. So those are those are the things we look at once a patient comes in.
Dr. Dana Hawkinson, director of infection control and prevention, The University of Kansas Health System
- There are new, more contagious variants now accounting for more than 40 percent of COVID cases.
- However, what we need to continue to tell the people is that, really there's no indication that these are more severe variants.
- When you're up to date with your booster, it continues to significantly reduce your risk of hospitalizations, but we also have the oral antiviral Paxlovid, but also the IV and antiviral Remdesivir if you're in the hospital as well, so we have mechanisms to help continue to reduce your risk of hospitalization and severe outcomes.
- Overall, the cases in the United States are much, much lower than they were last winter with the Delta or the original Omicron surge. Deaths are still fairly high, but nowhere near those levels that we're seeing previously.
Monday January 9 is the next Morning Medical Update. Ever wonder what happens to a pint of blood after you donate? We will take you behind the scenes to show you how blood products are processed to make sure they're ready when patients need it most.
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