CHARLOTTE — Novant Health sees 800 stroke patients a year at Presbyterian Hospital, where doctors say time is of the essence when treating the condition.
Doctors are using a tool that is transforming treatment and saving lives by identifying where in the brain a stroke occurs within seconds thanks to artificial intelligence.
After surviving a traumatic stroke, 51-year-old Moguku said he should never take the small things in life for granted.
Channel 9 spoke to stroke patients who found out AI was playing a role in saving their quality of life.
“I was driving my kids to art class the other day, and it was amazing,” said Matthew Moguku.
“It was really bad. I could be dead right now or not be able to move at all,” Moguku said. “It’s almost like it doesn’t move at all.”
Moguku’s CT scan showed that an artery in the back of his brain was clogged, stopping blood flow. And within seconds I started feeling the effects.
“I couldn’t breathe,” he said. “I couldn’t move anything. They were talking to me and I could kind of hear it, but it wasn’t really like that,” he said.
Doctors say patients lose two million brain cells every minute when blood stops flowing to their brains, which affects their ability to speak, see and even move.
Moguku was rushed to Novant Presbyterian Church’s emergency room, but little did he know that artificial intelligence was working there to save his life.
“AI is already dramatically changing medicine,” said Dr. Andrew Griffin, a neuroradiologist at Novant.
Griffin’s stroke team was alerted when Moguku was taken to the emergency room.
Viz.ai analyzed images from Mogk’s CAT scan and AI technology that determined where the stroke occurred.
“How quickly can AI detect a stroke in a patient compared to a human? We’re talking minutes to seconds,” Griffin said.
An alert was immediately sent to Griffin’s cell phone, giving him an instant roadmap for where to find the blood clot and remove it with a catheter.
“What does that mean for patient care?” Griffin said. “That means faster treatment, and when it comes to stroke, we have a ‘time is brain’ mantra.”
AI technology and the staff’s quick response not only saved Moguku’s life, but also his quality of life.
Moguk spent a month in intensive care at the hospital, relearning to walk and move without assistance.
“If I took another 20 minutes, there was a very good chance I wouldn’t be able to do this,” he said.
Moguk said advances in modern medicine and AI have allowed him to be with his wife and two children.
“I feel really, really lucky to have been through such a traumatic experience and recovered from it so well,” he said.
Moguk will undergo tests in the next few months, but doctors said they expect him to make a full recovery.
Novant has been using AI technology with stroke patients since 2019.
Video: ‘Trust your body’: Woman who suffered a stroke in her 20s shares warning story
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