Stroke

Did you know….

• Stroke happens to be number three cause of all the deaths in United States. The statistics released by national stroke association indicates that nearly 500,000 Americans annually suffer from stroke. Out of these, 150,000 die immediately or within few days. And the life of other remaining 350,000 survivors is affected in some or other way.
• 10 out of the 100 patients who survive stroke resume their normal lifestyle completely. Other 40 have some kind of impediment and require specialized care in some institution.

Urgent Treatments Can Avoid Sequels of Stroke

There is a procedure which uses latest technology to combat the complications of the stroke. This procedure called fibrinolysis permits the blood clot in the brain to dissolve and resume the blood flow to the brain which inhibits further damage and tissue loss.

Understanding the Stroke in detail

What is a stroke?
A stroke is a lesion caused due to interruption of oxygenated blood flow to certain part of the brain. This happens due to two reasons. Either a blood clot interrupts the blood flow to the brain tissues or because of hemorrhage due to break or puncture in the blood vessels. This interrupts the blood flow to some part of brain and cells and tissues there start to die. In such a condition when some brain cells die, the areas and abilities controlled by that particular portion are lost.

For example someone who has experienced a small stroke but recovered may experience some weakness in a particular arm or a leg. For someone who has experienced a larger stroke may get paralyzed on one side or may lose an ability to speak. Although few people do recover completely from stroke, 2/3rd of survivors will have some type of disability.

Risk factors associated stroke

Broadly the risk factors for stroke are categorized as controllable and non-controllable.

Controllable

50% of the strokes can be avoided by taking preventive measures for the following factors

• High blood pressure
• Obesity and high cholesterol foods
• Cigarette smoking
• Alcohol abuse
• Dehydration
• Over use of oral contraceptives
• Drug abuse
• Heart rate disorders

The factors listed above may increase the probability of the stroke. However, id these conditions are managed with proper medication and lifestyle changes, the risk of the stroke is significantly reduced.

Non Controllable

These are the factors over which we do not have any control.
For ex

• Age and gender of the individual
• Family history ( genetic or hereditary issues)
• History of previous strokes
• Diabetes

The symptoms of a stroke

Following are the symptoms which a person may experience during a sudden stroke. The person undergoing the stroke may demonstrate one or many of the symptoms listed below.

• Sudden weakness or numbness of face, arms, legs or half body
• Blurry vision or difficulty to see
• Difficulty speaking or understanding if spoken to
• Inability to walk, loss of equilibrium, dizziness
• Sudden intense headache, unexplained or a change in the usual characteristics of the headache.

What is Fibrinolysis?

Fibrinolysis is a highly sophisticated procedure in which a micro catheter is introduced inside the artery which reaches the brain area affected by the clot. With the help of this, a medicine is inducted into the blood vessel which dissolves the clot and restores the normal blood supply to the brain. Thus further damage is prevented. The procedure of fibrinolysis involves participation of a team of specialized physicians using state of the art, high end modern medical instrumentation like digital x-rays.