In this article we will explain what are the possible consequences of a stroke, a fairly frequent phenomenon that can have serious effects on health and lifestyle.
According to the National Stroke Association, every 40 seconds a stroke occurs somewhere in the world. And there are approximately 800,000 attacks per year, of which 137,000 die due to the spill..
It is also called a "stroke" or "cerebrovascular accident," and it occurs when blood flow to an area of the brain stops. As a result, brain cells run out of oxygen and therefore die.
In this way, those skills that are associated with the affected brain areas will be affected, so it must be diagnosed and treated as urgently as possible..
Currently there are treatments that can reduce the injuries caused, the most important thing being to quickly recognize the symptoms and go to the hospital. If the patient is treated within the first hour after the stroke, many negative consequences can be prevented.
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Although they injure the brain, strokes can affect the entire body. They can be more or less serious, harming the life of the person to a greater or lesser extent.
The effects include different degrees of muscle paralysis or weakness, speech problems, visual difficulties, balance, motor coordination, numbness of certain parts of the body, behavioral and cognitive changes, etc..
Some manage to fully recover from strokes, although most are left with some kind of sequel.
The consequences of a stroke present a wide variety of clinical signs and symptoms. Disability will vary according to the degree of neurological recovery, the place of the injury, the patient's previous state of health and the existing support systems in the environment..
In addition, there are risk factors that can make a person more prone to have a stroke, factors that can be modifiable and others that cannot. Some of the risk factors are: high cholesterol, overweight and lack of physical activity, tobacco use, hypertension, suffering from diabetes, having already suffered another stroke or transient ischemic attack or suffering from cardiovascular disease.
Having high cholesterol causes it to begin to accumulate on the walls of the arteries, blocking the passage of blood over time..
Being overweight predisposes other risk factors to appear and the circulatory system to work must use greater effort.
Tobacco causes the walls of the arteries to harden, making the heart work harder, increasing blood pressure, and damaging the walls of the blood vessels..
Hypertension or high blood pressure damages the artery walls and increases the likelihood of blood clots forming causing the stroke..
Diabetes causes changes in the blood vessels that are harmful, and the stroke is also more serious if the blood glucose level is high at that time.
Other factors include being over 55, male, race, and family history.
The consequences of a stroke can be classified according to the location of the damage and according to the cerebral hemisphere where it is located.
The first step after a stroke is to locate the injury. There are certain types of seizures that tend to occur in specific areas of the brain.
Its effect will vary depending on the person, location, severity, and number of spills. When a specific area of the brain is damaged, a specific and special function that it is responsible for is affected, so the person stops having optimal functioning in that activity.
However, even if there are certain damaged areas, it is important to know that the brain acts in an integrated way. Any simple activity starts up our entire nervous system. For this reason, any injury will affect our brain function as a whole..
Causing an interruption of blood flow in the carotid or anterior circulation, this type of effusion usually manifests with hemiparesis or hemiplegia. The first consists of a reduction in muscle strength only on one side of the body, the side opposite the damaged cerebral hemisphere. The second, on the other hand, refers to total paralysis of one side of the body.
A sensory or visual field loss may also appear (called hemianopia), which means that we can only see half of our visual field, being "blind" to the other half..
The middle cerebral artery is the one most commonly involved in strokes, while the anterior cerebral artery is less (affected in less than 3% of all strokes). This occurs because the middle cerebral artery supplies two-thirds of the surface of each hemisphere..
Let's talk a little about the consequences of strokes in each of them:
It involves areas such as the primary motor cortex, sensory areas of the face and upper extremities, and Broca's and Wernicke's areas (typical associated with language).
Additional symptoms will depend on in which of the two hemispheres the lesion is located. It also influences which of the two subdivisions (upper or M1, or lower or M2) the lesion is located. The main ones are:
It has the following consequences:
The vertebrobasilar circulation is the one that supplies the medial temporal lobes, occipitals, brainstem, and cerebellum. The consequences of a spill in these circuits depend on specific structures and are very varied:
It is important to know that normally and in most functions, one hemisphere of the brain will control the opposite side of the body. Therefore, if a stroke involves the right side of the brain, it will cause neurological problems on the left side of the body..
Therefore, depending on the affected hemisphere, all or some of these functions may be affected:
-Language and speech
-View
-Movement and perceptibility
-Perception and orientation of the environment
-Cognitive functions
-Emotional control
-Bladder and bowel control
-Self-care capacity
-Sexual ability.
The right hemisphere participates in the behaviors learned from voluntary initiation, perception and spatial orientation, planning, etc. The consequences of having a spill that covers this area can be:
It occurs between 22% and 46% of patients with involvement of the right hemisphere. It manifests itself in that the patient ignores only one side of his body, as if it did not exist. For example, you only shave, dress, or style your hair on one side of the body; Either eat only half of the food plate or draw half of the objects. However, this condition recovers in an average of 9 weeks..
It means that there is a lack of awareness about the disease or condition itself, that is, the patient does not feel that he has any problem. It is important in this type of patients that the professional let them know their deficits in order to encourage them to collaborate with the treatment..
Such as indifference, apathy, lack of motivation, impulsiveness, or emotional lability. It is normal that after a stroke it is more difficult to control your own emotions.
In the group of patients who normally do not have awareness of their own disease, the emotional affectations are more due to problems with brain function itself.
They have no problem producing or understanding language. Rather, it is that they cannot use language skills adequately in their pragmatic component. It refers to interpreting the linguistic content through intonation, metaphors, ironies ... it does not respect the turns of conversation, etc..
This hemisphere is primarily associated with the learning and use of language in most people. The consequences of an attack in this area are:
A lacunar infarct is an interruption of the flow of blood in small arteries that supply the brainstem and the medial and deep basal areas of the brain..
They are characterized by very small lesions distributed in different subcortical structures. They are highly associated with high blood pressure. If they are very small, this type of heart attack can be asymptomatic.
The most frequent (65%) occur in the lenticular nucleus (in the caudate nucleus of the brain), especially in the putamen,
Consequences of lacunar infarcts:
After a stroke, various cognitive functions can be altered, such as planning, problem solving, following instructions, decision-making, attention, concentration, memory, etc..
In addition, all these aspects can be worsened if the patient also has fatigue or tiredness and emotional problems such as anger, depression or anxiety.
Deficits associated with injuries that affect attention, executive function and processing speed, as long as spatial orientation and memory remain intact.
Loss of cognitive functions that come from cerebrovascular diseases or cardiovascular pathologies, in which, in addition to the previous functions, memory and orientation are also lost. Someone with a stroke is 10 times more likely to develop dementia than someone who has not had it.
It is very frequent, occurring between 30% and 60% of survivors. It can be extended from 3 to 13 months after the spill. Fatigue or excessive tiredness arises as a result of the alterations due to the accident, and this entails other negative consequences.
It can be a very limiting symptom both on a physical and psychosocial level, affecting functional independence, being linked to disability and neuropsychological problems; and fostering institutionalization and mortality.
The time since the accident, its severity or the right or left side of the injury does not seem to influence the onset of fatigue, although there is some evidence that the location of the damage may increase the risk of fatigue.
It should be taken into account for cognitive rehabilitation that these patients burn out quickly. For this reason, try to do short sessions or with many breaks and, little by little, increase their duration..
On the other hand, it must be understood that these patients can show great confusion. As we have mentioned, many do not know that they have deficits, but they slightly notice that there are things that have changed: now they feel pain, numbness, do not understand their surroundings, etc..
Therefore, it is essential that those affected know their situation, and are motivated by the family and professionals to collaborate with the treatment..
The cerebellum is located under the brain, at the back of the skull. It is part of the brain and its main function is to integrate the sensory pathways, through which it receives sensory information through the spinal cord, and the motor pathways, thus controlling action and movements..
This type of spill is less frequent and its common consequences include:
-Sickness
-Vomiting
-Headache
-Ataxia: difficulty in coordinating movements.
The brainstem is located at the base of the brain above the spinal cord, and is made up of the midbrain, pons, and medulla oblongata..
It controls various functions such as breathing, heart rate regulation, and blood pressure, and controls the major nerves involved in eye movement, chewing, swallowing, and speaking. Effects that occur in these types of spills:
-Chew, swallow and talk
-View
-Breathing
-Cardiac functions
-Balance and coordination
-Eat
-Weakness or paralysis.
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