Addressing stroke risk factors

At your visit to the Stroke and Cerebrovascular Program, a pediatric neurologist will evaluate your child’s risk for a stroke and help you and your child address that risk, as needed. This evaluation includes assessing risk for:

  • A full-blown stroke if your child has had a transient ischemic attack, or TIA

  • Another stroke if your child has already had one

Emergency stroke care

We offer one of the only programs in the region with dedicated emergency evaluation and treatment for acute stroke in children. This emergency care includes:

  • Tight coordination across the entire hospital

  • The capacity to reverse a stroke through mechanical thrombectomy (the removal of large clots in the brain) when appropriate

  • A focus on providing time-sensitive emergency stroke treatments, including blood pressure management

Team approach

Our goal is to provide your child with the most comprehensive treatment possible. That includes tackling the psychological and emotional issues that can come with recovering from a stroke, along with the physical ones. To do this, we collaborate with a variety of specialties, including:

Comprehensive Moyamoya services

Our comprehensive Moyamoya Program uses a team approach to treat Moyamoya, in relation to any other conditions your child may have along with it. This approach includes assessing your child’s risk factors for having a stroke and determining whether revascularization surgery is appropriate for your child.  

Neurorehabilitation in the hospital

Our Neurorehabilitation Program allows patients recovering from a stroke or other brain injury to begin their rehabilitation early, while still in the hospital.

The program works with you and your child to establish short- and long-term therapy goals to will help your child gain the ability to function as independently as possible:

  • Nearly 75 percent of children achieve their goals by discharge

  • More than 95 percent of children discharged from the program go directly home

Neurocritical care follow-up care

Having a child in the pediatric intensive care unit (or, PICU) can be incredibly stressful to both children and parents. Our neurocritical care follow-up program helps patients and children deal with this stress and its after effects.

The team will check on you and your child while in the PICU, work with you during your stay, and then follow-up a month after discharge. The program can help you and your child manage:

  • Sleep problems

  • School adjustment issues

  • Attention and behavior changes

  • Depression, anxiety or other changes in mood

Clinical trials and research

The stroke program is actively engaged in clinical research about all types of strokes. The goal is to find new treatment options for patients who have experienced a stroke or at risk for one. You may be approached about participating in a research study while you are at a scheduled clinic visit.