Did a Reporter Have a Stroke on TV?

[HejiraNYC]

New York Times
February 15, 2011
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/0...tv/?ref=health

Tara Parker-Pope

It began as a typical segment on the local news — a beaming television journalist preparing for a live report from the Grammy Awards. But as Serene Branson, a Los Angeles CBS reporter, began to speak, she uttered a few real words that turned into a stream of gibberish.

The video quickly went viral as bloggers mocked her slurred words and strange speech. “Somebody call an exorcist,” joked the celebrity blogger Perez Hilton. (He later removed the post.)

But now it appears that the Emmy-nominated Ms. Branson had suffered a stroke or related health problem that impaired her ability to speak.

“What a terrifying event,” said Dr. Daniel Labovitz, assistant professor of neurology at Einstein School of Medicine and attending stroke neurologist at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. “I very strongly suspect this was a stroke or transient ischemic attack.”

Ischemic strokes and T.I.A.’s are caused when a blood clot blocks blood flow to part of the brain. In the case of T.I.A., the blockage clears before permanent damage occurs, and the patient may quickly return to normal.

He said her speech problem suggests she had a blockage in the part of the brain that involves speech comprehension, but not speech production. Her speech pattern was characteristic of a condition called Wernicke aphasia. “The patient is pretty much unaware of the problem they’re having, and they are speaking fluently, with normal musicality of speech, but the words that come out are completely wrong,” he said. “Everything that’s coming out is unintelligible even though it sounds like language.”

Dr. Labovitz noted that because he doesn’t know Ms. Branson’s full medical history, he can’t be certain of her diagnosis, but the video is strongly suggestive of a stroke or T.I.A. He said it is highly unusual for such a problem to be captured on video. “This is more information than I’m usually going to get when someone has had a T.I.A.,” he added.

“I don’t think we saw the stroke start,” he said. “I think it may have begun before the camera started rolling. She was standing there smiling, completely unaware there was a problem until she attempted to speak, and even then she was not really aware she was making no sense because she kept talking.”

Ms. Branson couldn’t be reached, and KCBS officials didn’t return phone calls. The station issued a statement about Ms. Branson, saying she had experienced “some health-related problems” during the newscast and was examined by paramedics immediately. The station said her vital signs were normal, she was not hospitalized and a colleague gave her a ride home.

“And while Serene says she is feeling better today, she wants us to know she followed up with a visit to the doctor for some medical tests,” the statement said.

Dr. Labovitz said he was “shocked” to hear Ms. Branson went home, because anyone displaying strokelike symptoms should go to the hospital immediately. He said it’s possible that the symptoms disappeared quickly, and that given her young age and apparent good health, the event no longer seemed like an emergency after it was over.

“That’s exactly the wrong thing,” he said. “Even if it wasn’t a stroke, you need to get it checked out. It’s a tremendous opportunity for her to talk about what stroke is and what T.I.A. is, and what to do. You don’t go home. This is a 911 scenario. Her risk of stroke for the first few days after an event like that is extremely high.”

Dr. Labovitz said the kind of aphasia Ms. Branson displayed is less common than other stroke symptoms like weakness on one side, vision loss or balance problems, but it’s not rare either. He said he hopes Ms. Branson will eventually talk about the experience to get the message out about how to recognize and respond to strokelike symptoms.

“The nature of this kind of injury is that the patient is the last to know there is a problem,” he said. “I would guess that until she saw the video she wasn’t aware of how bad it was. You can only feel for her. She’s got a real chance here to get a message out.”