What is a stroke? Symptoms, Causes and Treatment

1. What is stroke?

A stroke (stroke) is a severely damaged brain condition that occurs when blood flow to the brain is interrupted or a blood vessel in the brain bursts. Meanwhile, the amount of oxygen and nutrients that nourish brain cells is significantly reduced. Within minutes, brain cells begin to slowly die and cause many life-threatening complications.

Stroke causes many dangerous complications and high mortality rates

The main types of stroke:

Ischemic stroke: Caused by an artery blockage, accounting for about 85% of all strokes. However, the disease can be effectively prevented if preventive measures are taken well.

• Thrombotic stroke: A blockage caused by the formation of blood clots or by plaque build up in an artery in the neck or brain.

• Stroke: A blood clot forms somewhere in the body, the heart most commonly. Then, moving to the brain causes a blockage.

• Hemorrhagic stroke: This type of stroke is caused by a rupture of the brain's surface or a hemorrhagic artery, which can be caused by an aneurysm, a deformed cerebrovascular system. Hemorrhagic stroke accounts for about 15% of all strokes.

Transient cerebral ischemia (TIA): commonly known as a minor stroke because of the brief symptomatic episode of the stroke, lasting a few minutes.

2. 6 earliest stroke warning signs

• The face has disproportionate expression, the mouth is distorted, and the center of the body is skewed.

• Reduced vision, blurred vision, lack of clarity. This manifestation often presents not clearly so it is difficult to recognize.

• Numbness in limbs, difficulty in movement, difficulty in moving, paralysis of one side of the body.

• Memory disorders, unconsciousness, difficulty in thinking about words to say, not expressing, feeling vague.

• Difficult to pronounce, abnormal lisp, tongue numb.

• Severe headache, rapid pain, may cause nausea or vomiting.

Distorted mouth, disproportionate face are one of the early stroke symptoms

In addition, you can recognize stroke risk early with F.A.S.T rule:

1. Face: The face shows signs of imbalance when smiling, grinning or talking. The folds of the nose and one side of the face are sagging

2. Arm: Hand is weak and shows signs of paralysis, cannot raise both arms or one hand cannot be raised.

3. Speech: Stuttering, unable to speak clearly, speech difficult or unable to speak.

4. Time: If the 3 signs above show that the patient has a high risk of stroke, it is necessary to urgently call an ambulance, take the patient to the medical facility as soon as possible.

3. What is the cause of the stroke?

Controllable factor

• High blood pressure: Facilitates the formation of blood clots, hinders blood circulation to the brain or puts pressure on artery walls and leads to brain hemorrhage.

• Smoking: Tobacco smoke damages the walls of blood vessels, increases hardening of the arteries and causes high blood pressure.

• High cholesterol, overweight: Causes many diseases such as cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease and increases the risk of stroke.

• Cardiovascular disease: Heart failure, atrial fibrillation, heart infection, heart rhythm disturbances have a high risk of stroke.

• Diabetes.

• Transient cerebral anemia.

• Recurrent Stroke: Personal history of stroke can come back in the first few months. This risk lasts about 5 years and decreases with time.

Uncontrollable factor

• Age: Every age is at risk of stroke, but people have a higher risk of stroke, especially after age 55.

• Gender: Men have a higher risk of stroke than women.

• Race: African Americans are 2 times more likely to have a stroke than whites.

• Family history: People whose relatives have had a stroke or have had heart attack or transient ischemic diseases have a higher risk of stroke than normal people.

Heart problems can be the cause of stroke

4. Treatment and complications after stroke

The longer the time, the more dead cells, the more affected the body's ability to move and think, possibly even death. Therefore, stroke sufferers need immediate medical attention, diagnosis and treatment.

• - Treatment:

• Golden time in stroke emergency: Golden time is understood as the best time to first aid treatment of stroke patients, with high recovery rates and the lowest complications.

• From 4 to 5 hours for cerebral infarction using hemolytic drugs.

• Within 6 hours for cerebral infarction intervened to obtain thrombosis.

Depending on the patient's condition, the doctor will prescribe the necessary medical interventions to save the patient's life and limit the disability after recovery.

Stroke patients should be examined, diagnosed and treated as quickly as possible, to avoid missing the golden time, causing severe brain damage, poor effectiveness of intervention leading to high post-intervention complications.

Diagnose and treat your stroke as soon as possible to avoid serious consequences

- Home first aid for people with signs of stroke:

• Do not let the sick person fall and call an ambulance right away.

• Put the patient in a safe recumbent position to protect the airway and be safe for the patient.

• Closely monitor the signs and reactions of the patient such as impaired consciousness, vomiting ...

• Absolutely do not arbitrarily do acupressure, wind beat, acupuncture.

• Do not give food or drink to patients because it can cause aspiration of vomit into the respiratory tract, obstructing the airways, which is very dangerous.

• Do not take antihypertensive drugs or any other medication on your own.

- Symptoms:

• Brain edema.

• Heart attack: Atherosclerosis, narrowing of the arteries increases the risk of heart attack.

• Seizures: The patient develops seizures due to unstable brain activity after stroke.

• Thrombophlebitis (DVT): Long-term inability to move can lead to blood clots forming in the veins of the legs, causing blood clots to block.

• Impairment of cognitive function.

• Sudden loss of language function.

• Urinary tract infections, bladder.

• The limbs are spastic, difficult to move.

• Pneumonia.

• Ulcers due to inability to move, must be bedridden for a long time.

5. How to prevent an effective stroke

(1) Control and treat conditions that increase the risk of variable stroke such as diabetes, heart disease, cholesterol, high blood pressure ...

> Early diabetes screening package

> Diabetes complication screening package

> Cardiovascular screening package to detect potential signs of the disease

(2) Healthy diet

Eating well can reduce the risk of stroke as well as prevent the disease from coming back. So, in addition to building a healthy diet with healthy foods, you should also avoid foods that can make your condition worse.

Foods to help prevent stroke:

• Omega-3 rich foods like salmon, tuna, and mackerel.

• Lentils, dark vegetables, asparagus, broccoli, nuts, and radishes are rich in folate.

• Foods that help lower bad cholesterol are oats, soybeans, and almonds.

• Magnesium-rich foods like cereals, bananas, avocados, legumes, seaweed, raspberries ...

• Drink lots of filtered water, juice.

Some foods to avoid:

• Canned and processed foods.

• Do not eat or process too salty dishes such as salted eggplant, pickles ... because high salt intake can easily cause high blood pressure.

• Limit your intake of meat, milk, and meat and dairy products because these are foods high in saturated fat and are not beneficial for heart health.

• Do not eat too much eggs, foods containing a lot of cholesterol such as margarine, shrimp, chips, animal liver, cheese ...

• Limit or quit alcohol, tobacco to prevent atherosclerosis, reduce the risk of stroke again.

Eating a healthy diet helps prevent strokes and many other related diseases

(3) Lifestyle changes

• Balance work, reduce stress, anger.

• Rest, reasonable activities, do not bathe at night, stay up too late.

• Need to keep the body warm, keep healthy, especially during the changing season.

(4) Exercise every day

Exercising at least 5 days a week, 30 minutes a day not only enhances your health, but also helps lower blood pressure and prevent stroke. Note, should choose heavy exercises, vigorous exercise such as weight training, tennis. Instead, you can choose to walk, jog or do yoga or yoga.

(5) Health checkup every 6 months, 1 year / 1 time for timely screening (cardiovascular disease, diabetes)

Periodic health checkup helps to detect the earliest risk of stroke and underlying conditions. From there, doctors will have proactive interventions to treat and guide effective prevention.

> Periodic checkup packages for Men and Women

Early detection of stroke signs and prompt treatment is the best way to limit the dangerous complications caused by the disease. So when there are unusual symptoms