Wondered if anyone had any experience/knowledge of this.
DF had a fall and has been in hospital for over 2 weeks as a result. He has very poor mobility causing fairly frequent falls these days. This time he banged his head, had a huge cut on his head, taken to hospital, stitched up and has healed fine. He had a scan when he first arrived in hospital. There was a slight bleed on the brain, presumably caused by the knock on the head, but that was deemed ok after about 24 hours.
He was due to be moved to a care home yesterday for rehabilitation before returning home. This is normal for him. He loses strength very quickly after a fall and needs physio to get him back to his normal (which is basically being able to get himself out of his chair and to the toilet using his walker and back again). He has a lot of care needs that my mum deals with, but she can't lift him or assist him out of his chair/off the toilet.
Yesterday morning, just before being moved to the care home, he had a haemorrhagic stroke. Luckily it seems there are no serious side effects.
He has atrial fibrillation, and was taking a medication to manage that. My understanding is that that medication lowered the risk of ischaemic strokes. He's now been told that he can't take that medication any more due to the increased risk of haemorrhagic stroke that that medication can cause.
I've not spoken to the Dr myself, but my mum says he's basically been told that he will now have another stroke, there's nothing they can do, and it's just a case of waiting for that stroke to happen.
My mum has taken this to mean that a stroke (catastrophic or even fatal) is imminent. DB, who lives overseas, has booked a flight home expecting the worst.
I'm sure DF is high risk, with the atrial fibrillation, no medication for that allowed, also, he's an alcoholic... but, my question to those who might have experience/knowledge of this, is a stroke 'imminent' do you think?
I know no-one can predict when a stroke might happen...I guess I'm just trying to work out how likely a stroke is in this situation and should we be preparing for the worst, or is it just that the risk level has gone up and chances are he could carry on as 'normal' for years?
Would appreciate anyone's thoughts on this.