Stroke and COVID-19: The Value of Narrative Medicine

Stroke and COVID-19 are both traumatic and life-altering experiences that are marked by uncertainty, fear, and medical intervention. The devastation that stroke and COVID-19 oppress on an individual and a population is well established, and these traumas are potently magnified in the troughs of the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, stroke has been shown to be a potential complication of COVID-19 infection, and while there is global controversy regarding this finding, it is undeniable that there are patients across the world presenting with both conditions concurrently. Thus, the topic of isolated stroke and the co-occurrence of stroke and COVID-19 amidst the pandemic both warrant considerable investigation on both a basic science level and a humanistic level. This opinion article advocates for a narrative medicine approach to better explicate the intertwining of stroke and COVID-19. Interviewing patients who presented with both stroke and COVID-19 as well as patients who present with stroke during the pandemic will provide the opportunity to gather and juxtapose individual illness experiences, including encounters with the health care system, relationship with care teams and care takers, recovery, and insights into the future. Creating, analyzing, and comparing such an anthology of illness narratives of the 2 patient populations will offer a unique understanding into the experience of different, yet over-lapping, medical traumas in an unprecedented time. With this deeper appreciation of patient accounts, the health care system can better recognize how to provide for future patients who present specifically with stroke or stroke and COVID-19. However, more broadly, this study can also afford insight into how the health care system can better provide for and support patients who present with complex diagnoses in the context of a complex healthcare system, which most probably will operate under the effects of the pandemic for time to come as well as other, future complicating factors.