Understanding Stroke, the Warning Signs and Early Detection

One condition lots of us are scared of is Stroke. From the outside, it looks like the inability to move a particular region of the body, and this make a person completely or almost useless to themselves as they wouldn't be able to do things that they could in the past. How do you know you are about to have a stroke?

A stroke occurs as a result of inadequate oxygen to the brain. This oxygen deprivation can lead to so many neurological condition. The brain isn't the biggest organ or part of the body, but it consumes over 20% of the entire energy used by the body functioning at all time to control sensation cognition, vision, motor activities and so on, and so requires a lot of oxygen and loss of oxygen can lead to stroke. For people who are about to have stroke, part of the signs they will see is lack of consciousness as a result of the brain not getting enough blood in about 10 seconds, and you must have heard that there can be complete brain damage if the brain doesn't recieve oxygen for about 4 to 6 minutes which leads to brain death.

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Strokes can be Ischemic (lack of blood providing oxygen) which counts for majority of all the stroke This can be as a result of an embolus blocking a smaller vessel that would feed blood to the brain leading to the death of the vessel therby preventing blood from getting to the brain causing the death of the brain tissue where the blood isn't supplying. Hemorrahgic stroke (Bleeding of the vessels leading to lack of oxygen to the brain) and it is more fatal compared to ischemic stroke . This can occur as a result of a vessel weakening leading to a tear of the vessel causing blood to flow out and filling the intracranial space causing intracranial pressure coupled with the fact that blood isn't going to the brain. Transcient ischemic attack and this stroke can be reversed as it is temporary. This can be as a result of a plaque in the blood vessels where a reduction inflow could lead to a blockage but not a complete occlusion. This attacks usually occur in seconds or minutes but less than 4 minute. This is refered to as a mini-stroke, Pre-stroke, or Warning stroke. This is where the unconciousness comes into play as people who have trancient Ishemic attack tend to have a full stroke over time.

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People who would have stroke will experience sudden weakness ot paralysis which would happen unilaterally depending on the hemisphere of the brain being affected. This would occur in the face, upper limb or lower limb. In the face, it would lead to drooping of the face. This weakness can go as far as affecting muscles thereby causing loss of balance suddenly, loss of fine muscle movement. It can also affect the cognitive functions such as memory loss, inability to make decisions. Having numbness and tingling is another sign of a possible stroke along with having blurred or double vision. TIA and ischemic strokes have the same symptoms but the severity and the time differs, so when a person excperience a TIA, then they should immediately begin treatment so as to prevent a possible stroke.

There are risk factors that can cause a person to have stroke and they include; blood disorder such as people with Sickle cell anemia which has a tendency of clotting, people with autoimmune disease can also have a stroke as the immune system can attack the blood vessels arrying blood to the brain. People with high blood pressure are likely to have a stroke as a result of pressure being exerted on the vessel. Smoking and tobacco use is another risk factor, high alcohol intake, sedentary lifestyle, medications such as birth control drugs can lead to a stroke. Having Diabetes is another factor to having a stroke, along side Cardiovascular diseases, poor circulation, chronic kidney disease, amd pheriperal artery disease are major risk factors for having a stroke.

Reference

• (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5321635/)
• (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6685251/)
• (https://bmcneurol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12883-019-1592-z)
• (https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/01.STR.28.7.1507)
• (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7589849/)
• (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK535369/)