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CNN Live Saturday

Margaret Thatcher Has Recovered From Minor Stroke

Aired January 26, 2002 - 12:40   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: We're told that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has recovered from a stroke. A spokesperson says the 76-year-old former leader suffered a minor stroke late last year. She was treated and now she's getting back to business as usual.

CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now to talk about her condition. What do we know about this stroke?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, all we sort of heard -- and details are still a little sketchy, Fredricka -- but over the holidays she had an episode where she had difficulty with her speech, difficulty with her coordination. That prompted a visit to the hospital, where she subsequently had some tests done and was released, and we were told that she made a complete recovery.

So Fredricka, we were talking about this a little bit earlier, but a lot of times what happens sometimes when you have a brief interruption of blood supply to the brain, for all sorts of different reasons that might occur. You can have something that's called a transient ischemic attack. That means that, while you might develop these symptoms, such as difficulties with speech, difficulties with coordination, et cetera, they all get better.

It is important to find out why that occurred. Such reasons as narrowing of the arteries, here in the neck, that can be a possibility, or a blood clot from the heart. Whatever the reason, we don't know what the reason is at this point, but are told that she's recovered well.

WHITFIELD: So how alarming is this, though, in this grand scheme of things since there are so many variations of, you know, the seriousness of a stroke? How serious is this probably?

GUPTA: Well, it can be very serious, and it's certainly something that shouldn't be taken lightly, even if there was a complete recovery. Some things to think about, you know, here in the United States 500,000 strokes a year, 150,000 of those will result in death. Of the people that recover, 350,000, a lot of those people are going to need long-term assistance.

So it is important to try and find out why the TIA, the transient ischemic attack occurred, and work it up. Sometimes it might involve actually doing an operation on the carotid arteries to clean those out. Sometimes it might require a blood thinner, something as simple as aspirin or more complicated as Fumidin (ph). The bottom line is, if you have any of those symptoms as she did, certainly get it checked out and get the appropriate therapy as necessary.

WHITFIELD: At the same time, she's 76. She seems like she's in great shape. I mean this comes as a surprise for all of us from the outside looking in. But what can, you know, our grandparents or parents out there learn from something like this, in terms for looking for any particular symptoms or any kind of heads-up that they could be?

GUPTA: Well you know in medicine, we always talk about sort of more physiological age rather than ages. Obviously, people who age much more quickly as a result of a thing like cigarette smoking, diet, lack of exercise, all those sorts of things.

But the bottom line, Fredricka, if you have any of these symptoms, again you know if you have some tingling in the hand, some temporary weakness in the hand, difficulty with speech, difficulties with coordination, maybe even something as subtle as difficulty finding words, get it checked out.

That could be a precursor to something more serious, like a stroke. But if you catch it early, that's something that can be prevented, and you can avoid all the bad things that might happen.

WHITFIELD: All right, good advice. Thanks very much, Dr. Gupta.

GUPTA: By the way, welcome to CNN.

WHITFIELD: Thank you very much.

GUPTA: It's good to have you.

WHITFIELD: Thank you very much. Thanks for talking with me.

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