Medical experts are concerned that the handling of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s sudden medical issue this week sent a potentially dangerous public-health message: that when someone experiences an episode with symptoms like McConnell’s, they can simply return to work as if nothing happened.
On Wednesday, McConnell experienced the episode, during which he froze and remained silent for approximately 20 seconds during a press conference before displaying symptoms of disorientation and being led away by aides as cameras rolled.
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The 81-year-old senator from Kentucky returned to the press briefing minutes later and stated, “I’m fine.” He did not respond to specific queries regarding his medical history. A McConnell aide later reported that the senator had felt dizzy.
Experts told STAT that it is impossible to determine what happened to McConnell without a firsthand medical examination. However, many have expressed concern that his issue, whatever it was, was regarded as routine.
Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, chief of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, stated, “If someone else is in a similar circumstance, it could be a medical emergency.” Speech impairment is one of the five key signs of a stroke, and it is essential to rule out the most serious potential causes when such symptoms are observed.
“When you see something like that, which is essentially a neurological event—we don’t know what it was, but his brain malfunctioned—yyou always assume the worst, not because that’s the most likely cause, but because you want to address the things that are the most immediate threat to your health and to you,” said Bernard Ashby, a professor of medicine at the University of Miami and vascular cardiologist.
Vega, a neurologist at the East Carolina Medical Center in Greenville, North Carolina, said that context is essential. If a person has experienced speech difficulties in the past without permanent consequences and understands how to handle them, everything may be fine.
If a doctor examined McConnell and gave him the all-clear to resume the press conference, his office did not respond to a request for comment. Vega remarks that he does not believe it would have been necessary or appropriate to rush McConnell to the emergency room in front of the cameras. But he added that people with “exactly this symptom, the very thing that this man experienced in front of the cameras, are routinely examined for a potential acute stroke.”
“Time is the mind. Therefore, if you are experiencing a stroke, it is crucial that you receive care and treatment as quickly as possible, according to Verduzco-Gutierrez.
Ashby stated that in the case of an older individual with a recent history of concussion, such as Mitch McConnell, a typical medical response to sudden speech difficulty would include not only a check of vital signs but also an electrocardiogram, laboratory tests, and brain imaging scans. (Assuming the individual has no history of similar episodes and no known cause, such as a brain tumor.)
Ashby stated, “The fact that he came back out and spoke after experiencing a neurological event did not appear to be a good idea.” Given the possibility that what transpired could occur again, you should not waste any time.
