EDMONTON -- A local neurology professor says the University of Alberta Hospital is seeing an increase in COVID-19-positive patients having strokes.
Associate clinical professor of neurology Jenn McCombe says the uptick is hard to measure without a baseline to compare it to, but hospitals around the world are reporting a rise, particularly in young patients who would normally rarely suffer strokes.
“We know that clots are more common in people that have COVID, so its not a big stretch to think that people might have more strokes,” she told CTV News Edmonton. “But in general, any sort of additional complications that we see from COVID add to what’s already a very busy healthcare system.”
McCombe also says because of the rise in COVID-19 cases, specialized-nurses working in the neurology department are being redeployed to ICUs, and the extra strain on the health care system means patients with chronic conditions are not getting the same access to care they used to.
