It is worth noting that after only 12 hours of applying two methods simultaneously: using blood-dissolving drugs and removing blood clots, the 103-year-old man fully recovered, leaving no sequelae in movement, thinking and memory.
At 11:30 p.m. on January 2, 2025, the Stroke Center - Bach Mai Hospital received Mr. Dao Van De, 103 years old, in a state of drowsiness, weakness in the right side of his body, complete aphasia...
Through investigation, the family said: At around 10pm, after watching the football match between Vietnam and Thailand, the family saw the old man faint, thinking he was sleepy but when they touched him, they saw him gradually fall down. Immediately, the family called an ambulance to take him straight from Hung Yen to the Stroke Center, Bach Mai Hospital.
After taking the patient's medical history and making a clinical assessment, the doctors at the Stroke Center concluded that this was an acute stroke that occurred during the golden hour. Every minute that passed, 1.9 million of the patient's brain cells would die, so the sooner the intervention to re-open the brain's blood vessels, the higher the chance of saving the patient. With little time left, the doctors at the Stroke Center immediately consulted with the doctors at the Radiology Center to agree on the optimal treatment plan for the patient.
In normal stroke cases, it is not difficult for doctors to prescribe a thrombolysis regimen combined with vascular intervention. However, applying both methods on the aging "machine" of a 103-year-old body is an extremely big challenge. The patient must face a series of potential risks: The risk of thrombolysis alone is less effective in clearing the blood vessels because the blockage is in a large segment of the blood vessel; The risk of complications when performing vascular intervention is high because the blood vessels in the brain of a 103-year-old person can be very fragile and have bleeding complications...
In addition, there are a series of other challenges such as poor prognosis for a 103-year-old patient who has to be resuscitated after the intervention, difficulty in weaning off the ventilator if general anesthesia and intubation are used during the intervention, risk of infection, exhaustion, ulcers, etc. But if there is no immediate "decision", the old man faces the risk of rapid progression and severe sequelae.
Faced with that “borderline”, the doctors “weighed their brains in a flash” and decided to combine two revascularization treatments: thrombolysis and thrombectomy. After 1 hour of intense intervention in the freezing night, the left middle cerebral artery was completely revascularized. The patient’s symptoms improved greatly, he was more alert, and his right half-body strength improved by 3/5.
Less than 12 hours after the intervention, the 103-year-old man was completely conscious. He excitedly boasted to the patients around him and the medical staff taking care of him that he had 5 children, of which “the father and 4 children” were party members… Recalling the football match between Vietnam and Thailand, he recounted in detail each goal scored by the Vietnamese and Thai teams.
