Cerebro-vascular accident (CVA) (stroke)

31 Jan, 2016 - 00:01 0 Views

The Sunday News

Lee-Anne Hall

The response time between suffering a stroke and receiving medical attention is crucial in determining the effects thereafter. Hence, it is considered a medical emergency.

Cerebro-vascular accident (CVA) commonly known as a stroke is defined as a sudden neurological deficit lasting more than 24 hours, resulting in a lack of oxygen in a certain part of the brain.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), it is the third most leading cause of death and a major cause of disability. Therefore, it’s of great importance for people to understand its presentation, signs and symptoms.

Strokes are most likely to affect people 45 years and older unless complicated by other illnesses for example HIV and Aids.

Diagnosis and causes

There are two main causes of stroke namely:
1) Ischaemic stroke; 85 percent of strokes result from an occlusion of one of the major arteries of the brain usually resulting from a blood clot. Here, a clot in the artery blocks blood from penetrating through certain parts of the brain and as a result that part is deprived off oxygen.

2) Haemorraghic stroke: 15 percent of strokes come from a ruptured artery in the brain causing bleeding. Once again blood does not get through to a certain part of the brain and as a result it is deprived off oxygen.

In order to come up with an accurate diagnosis health professionals carry out a series of tests including brain scans to investigate the area of the brain affected as well as the cause of the stroke.

It important for individuals to know the signs and symptoms of a stroke. As I mentioned earlier it is a medical condition and we want to make sure the victim survives the stroke.

The main problems someone will complain of is weakness or paralysis on one side of the body, slurred speech or difficulty articulating words, a headache, difficulty in using limbs on one side of the body and confusion.

Risk factors
When it comes to a stroke it is important to understand its risk factors that way one will know how to prevent them.

We have what we call the vicious “evil” triad. This is a combination of Hypertension, Cholesterol and Diabetes.

I will unpack each of those conditions and briefly describe how they can lead to a stroke.

Diabetes is defined as having high glucose levels in the body. One of its major complications as I elaborated in my previous issue is the damage it causes to blood vessels. In other words, it causes thinning of the blood vessel wall and the healing process is poor.

High cholesterol levels in the body cause plaques to form inside the walls of the blood vessels. Cholesterol is caused by eating a lot of fat and saturated foods. When a lot of plaque forms within the blood vessel walls it causes narrowing meaning less blood can flow within the vessels.

Lastly Hypertension, which is known to most as high blood pressure.

Thus, one can think that the combination of diabetes which causes blood vessel damage, cholesterol which causes insufficient flow of blood and hypertension which can cause the already damaged blood vessel wall can easily lead to a rupture hence causing a stroke.

Another major risk factor for stroke is smoking.

Prevention and Management
The most important way to avoid a stroke it to know how to manage or at least prevent the risk factors.

Diabetes, cholesterol and Hypertension are diseases of lifestyle. In other words how one leads their activities of daily living such as eating habits as well as level of exercise determine whether or not one prevents the disease or at least its progression.

Please refer to my previous issue on how to prevent and manage diabetes.

Cholesterol is mainly prevented by avoiding fats and saturated foods.

Hypertension damages arteries and clogs blood vessels thus putting one at a much higher risk of a risk.

For those patients that are suffering from any of the above mentioned three it is very important to manage it well but drinking medication prescribed by your doctor or nurse.

Get dietary advice preferably from a dietician as to the correct food to eat and its different moderations.

And finally, exercise or at least an active lifestyle everyday and avoiding smoking.

After one suffers a stroke the three most important interventions which help prevent death are;

1) Take them to the nearest hospital, clinic or healthcare facility.

2) Give them aspirin — which is an anti-coagulant medication to help dissolve blood clot/s in the brain.

3) Thrombolysis with altepalse-which helps break down unwanted blood clots.

Rehabilitation
After one has survived a stroke and has been discharged from hospital they have to go through intensive rehabilitation in order to drive them back to independence as well as avoid further complications.

Rehabilitation is referred to as the period one is taught to re-adjust to the activities of daily living with the paralysis they now have.

Many health professionals (interdisciplinary team) come together to discuss treatment goals as well as the time frame to which they would like to accomplish those goals.

In a nutshell, the team includes a physiotherapist, occupational therapist, dietician as well as a speech and language therapist.

The physiotherapist will mainly focus on gross motor skills focused on muscle re-education and strengthening, learning to use the limbs again and gait (walking-pattern) re-education to mention a few.

The Occupational therapist mainly focuses of activities of daily living such as helping the patient to be as independent as possible with activities of daily living for example making the bed, washing and dressing them. They also focus on the use of assistive devices for example wheelchairs and walking aids.

Dieticians are also there to monitor one’s eating habits which play the most important role in preventing another possible stroke.

Lastly, many stroke patients face the challenge of swallowing, speech formation and articulation. Here a speech and language therapist will be very helpful.

A stroke is a burden of disease and due to its sudden onset families never see it coming. A stroke patient in most cases is totally dependent at first meaning they rely on family and members of the healthcare system to help them with activities of daily living.

My advice is if faced with this challenge work with a team of health professionals for a speedy recovery.

“Take care of your busy body, you owe that to your family.”

Stroke is a very wide topic and I would advise those that like to know more to email me at [email protected] or visit my blog www.healthpromotionbyleeanne.wordpress.com or read articles posted by the World Health Organisation. Lee-Anne T Hall, BSc Physiotherapy.

Share This:

Survey


We value your opinion! Take a moment to complete our survey

This will close in 20 seconds