Physician as Patient Series - Stroke and Cancer Survivor

Dr. Andy Southerland and Dr. Dipika Aggarwal discuss her remarkable journey as both a physician and a patient. After overcoming stage four colon cancer, she experienced a life‑altering stroke that reshaped her perspective.

Show transcript:

Dr. Andy Southerland:

Hello everyone. This is Andy Southerland and for this week's Neurology Minute, I've just been speaking with our colleague, Dipika Aggarwal, who's a clinical assistant professor of neurology at University of Kansas, who's been sharing her story for the Physician's Patient series from Cancer Survivorship and as a stroke survivor.

And for the Neurology Minute, we wanted to share an important pearl that Dipika shared with me in her interview about stroke recovery and specifically about mental health outcomes after stroke. So Dipika, please, share with us for the Neurology Minute.

Dr. Dipika Aggarwal:

So yes, my biggest takeaway point from my own stroke experience was the neuropsychiatric complications that can happen as a risk from stroke. The most important ones being post-stroke depression, post-stroke anxiety.

Even if the literature says that they can happen just for 30% of the cases, in reality, I think the incidence is more. But then they can affect quality of life of the stroke survivor, the recovery, and even in some cases can affect their mortality.

So I think it is really important for healthcare providers, especially the neurologists, to ask their patients how they are doing mentally or emotionally. I think it is as important as checking their vitals during every visit. It is as important as that, because again, it can affect their recovery.

Dr. Andy Southerland:

Well, thank you, Dipika. I think it's a good message for all of us in the busyness of our clinics and seeing patients in rapid throughput in and out of the hospital with stroke to make sure that not only in those early days, but also all the way out in the continuum of their recovery, to continue to come back to their mental health recovery.
And their personal recovery, as you've articulated, which is so critical to one stroke recovery. And for this and more, I really encourage our listeners, please listen to the entirety of this interview.

You will come away with it being a better neurologist for your patients. I promise you that. And I'm truly grateful again to Dipika for joining us for this week's Neurology Minute.