Using Twitter to Treat Stroke

Yesterday, a 97 year old woman arrived in our emergency department after suddenly becoming unable to speak, and having weakness over the right side of her body. She was brought in by her husband, also in his 90s. We needed to make some immediate decisions about our options for treatment of this devastating condition, but it was necessary to find out when the symptoms started. Treatment for stroke requires having this knowledge, because treatments can only be administered within a narrow time window. The clot dissolving medication, tPA, could not be administered in this patient later than three hours following her first symptoms.

When we asked her husband when this all started, he told us he was uncertain about the time, but he did know one thing – ‘it happened during the seventh inning of the Yankee game’. We needed to find out immediately when the game was in the seventh inning. On to the Internet. A box score was not helpful. I decided to search Twitter for ‘Yankees’, and the line of tweets was immediately traced back to what we wanted. We discovered that the time was two hours earlier. The patient was treated with tPA and, and has demonstrated some improvement.

One more tool in stroke treatment. Twitter.

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