Medical Services • Stroke

The advanced care for stroke symptoms you need, close to home

The effectiveness of any stroke therapy depends on how quickly you recognize the symptoms and seek emergency medical care. That’s why we say, “Time is brain.”

As a Primary Stroke Center, Northwest Community Hospital is one of only two hospitals in the Northwest Suburbs able to offer two of the most advanced, highly effective interventions for signs of a stroke. Illinois law mandates that any patient believed to be suffering from stroke symptoms must be transported to the closest Primary Stroke Center.

Once NCH’s Stroke Team determines the type of stroke you have suffered, they will then select the most effective treatment for you.

NCH’s new stroke intervention procedures for ischemic strokes

If your condition is appropriate, the following interventions will be provided to you:

• Within the first 4.5 hours: Since ischemic strokes are caused by blood clots, NCH’s medical team will administer a clot-busting drug such as tPA (tissue plasminogen activator) intravenously.
• Up to eight hours after the onset of stroke symptoms: If the IV treatment does not adequately dissolve the clot or it cannot be administered effectively within the time frame, minimally invasive neurointerventional techniques (intra-arterial thrombolysis, or reaching the clot by navigating through an artery) may be used to locate, dissolve or remove your clot.

Before treatment. Many more branches of the artery should be seen, but because blood flow is blocked, those arteries are not visible.		During treatment. The patient is given tPA (medication) and the penumbra device is used to clear the blockage. In this image, more artery branches are becoming visible.		After treatment. The clots have been removed from the basilar artery. Many more artery branches are now visible.

Additional conditions treated by our neurosciences physicians:

• Migraines and complex headaches
• Brain aneurysms and vascular diseases of the brain
• Spinal pain, injuries or damage
• Brain tumors
• Movement disorders including Parkinson's disease, epilepsy
• Neuromuscular disorders including myasthenia gravis, peripheral neuropathy
• Cognitive disorders including Alzheimer's disease

For more information on interventional radiology, click here.

For emergency or urgent intra-hospital transfers, please call our 24-hour Stroke Hotline at 847.618.8888.

To get a physician referral for your neurological care, call HealthConnection at 847.618.4YOU (4968) or view our multidisciplinary team of stroke specialists.