Don’t neglect speech disorders, paralysis of a limb, or loss of sensation on one side of the body. This is because they can signal a stroke. This is a medical emergency and must be treated immediately. I found out what solutions exist and how recovery proceeds from Dr. Iulia Petre, neurology specialist at the SANADOR Clinical Hospital.
“Acute ischemic stroke is considered an emergency in neurology. It represents a pathology that consists in the interruption of blood flow at the cerebral level, through the obstruction of a blood vessel.
Through this mechanism, we are dealing with the deprivation of the neuronal cells of nutrients and oxygen, which ultimately causes their death.
Acute ischemic stroke is a neurological emergency because it can mean the difference between life and death. And the longer the presentation to the hospital for specialist investigations and treatment is delayed, the greater the risk that the patient will be left with serious long-term neurological sequelae.
What are the symptoms of an acute ischemic stroke?
Symptoms differ depending on the location of the stroke. But the main neurological signs that must be recognized in the case of a stroke can be easily remembered by the acronym AVC. A comes from facial asymmetry. When we ask the patient to smile, the corners of the mouth are pointed in opposite directions. V comes from incoherent speech or the inability to say certain words. And C comes from the fall of a limb and consists in the installation of a motor deficit at the level of the upper or lower limbs.
What happens to the stroke patient when they arrive in an emergency department?
First of all, the patient must tell us clearly the onset of the symptomatology or we must be told when the patient was last seen well by the relatives. Afterwards, some blood tests are taken and a thorough medical history and examination are done.
Brain imaging tests are also done to see if it is an ischemic stroke or a hemorrhagic stroke. If the imaging investigations ruled out a hemorrhagic accident and the patient presented within the first 4 and a half hours after the onset of symptoms, emergency treatment can be initiated.
What treatments are available for stroke?
In the case of ischemic vascular accident, if the patient presents himself in the therapeutic window, the treatment of choice is intravenous thrombolysis, which consists of injecting a substance that has the role of dissolving the blood clot that obstructs the blood vessel.
The treatment is calculated according to the patient’s weight. If the patient has contraindications for this treatment or has exceeded the 4 and a half hour window, there is mechanical thrombectomy that lends itself to patients in whom it has been observed through brain imaging that we are dealing with obstruction of a large blood vessel” he told us in the video interview Dr. Iulia Petre, neurology specialist at SANADOR Clinical Hospital.
2023-07-13 12:55:34
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