Waikato chosen to be FAST learners for stroke

Posted: Published on November 18th, 2014

This post was added by Dr Simmons

16 October 2014

Waikato chosen to be FAST learners for stroke

Waikato residents will be the first in New Zealand to benefit from a large-scale public education campaign on how to recognise the symptoms of stroke.

Television and radio advertising of the F.A.S.T. message from Sunday 19 October aims to increase the number of people who can recognise a stroke when it happens and know what to do. The Stroke Foundation of New Zealand says that lives and livelihoods could be saved if more people knew a stroke when they saw one, and the F.A.S.T. message is a proven way of remembering the main symptoms.

A third of New Zealanders are unable to name a single symptom of stroke correctly, said SFNZ CEO Mark Vivian. The campaign launched on Sunday will try to change that and make sure more stroke cases get to hospital quicker where they can receive treatment which might save their life or reduce the damage that stroke does.

The meaning of FAST should trip off everyones tongue as easily as slip-slop-slap and drop, cover and hold. Its just as important and could save just as many lives as those well-known phrases.

Other countries around the world such as Australia, USA and the UK have seen the value in funding significant advertising of the FAST message, so we hope that this campaign in the Waikato will persuade the government to finally bring it to the whole of New Zealand in a big way.

F.A.S.T. stands for Face-Arm-Speech-Time. Face is it drooping on one side? Arm is one arm weak. Speech is it jumbled or slurred or lost? Time time is critical, call 111. The mnemonic aims to help people remember three of the most common symptoms of stroke.

The F.A.S.T. message has been used in New Zealand by the Stroke Foundation since the mid-2000s but without the funding to bring it to peoples attention via mass-market advertising. The proportion of New Zealanders able to name as many as three correct symptoms of stroke has remained stubbornly low (at 1 in 10) despite thousands of leaflets and posters displaying the message circulating for several years.

The new campaign is the first time television advertising has been used to promote the FAST message in New Zealand. The advert will play on TVNZ and Maori TV for six weeks from October 19. Radio advertising will also be heard throughout the region on Breeze, Radio Live, Classic Hits, Coast, Newstalk ZB, Te Reo O Tainui FM and The Sound. Advertising will be supported by public relations, community activities, and distribution of printed information leaflets and posters.

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Waikato chosen to be FAST learners for stroke

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