What I discovered is both good and not so good. According to medical professions, a stroke is a brain attack. It is much like a heart attack, only it occurs in the brain.
When the blood supply to a part of the brain is cut off or greatly decreased, a stroke occurs. If the blood supply is cut off for several hours or more without enough blood supply, the brain cells die. Not good. Not good at all.
Depending upon the amount of blood involved and location of the stroke area in the brain, a person having a stroke can show many signs and symptoms. These can range from barely noticeable, difficulties moving or speaking to paralysis or death.
About 750,000 new strokes occur in the United States each year. Stroke is the third most common cause of death (after heart disease and cancer).
These are the common symptoms of stroke:
- Weakness in the arm or leg or both on the same side: This can range from total paralysis to a very mild weakness. Complete numbness or a pins-and-needles feeling may be present on one side of your body or part of one side of your body.
- Weakness in the muscles of the face: Your face may droop or look lopsided. Speech may be slurred because you can't control the movement of your lips or tongue.
- Difficulty speaking: You can't speak, speech may be very slurred, or when you speak, the words sound fine but do not make sense.
- Coordination problems: You may seem uncoordinated and stumble or have difficulty walking or difficulty picking up objects.
- Dizziness: You may feel drunk or dizzy or have difficulty swallowing.
- Vision problems: You may develop difficulty with vision, such as double vision, loss of peripheral (side) vision, or blindness. (Blurred vision by itself is not usually a symptom of stroke.)
- Sudden headache: A sudden, severe headache may strike like "a bolt out of the blue." Some people have called this the worst headache of their lives.
- Loss of consciousness: You may become unconscious, stuporous, or hard to arouse and could die.
1. Hemorrhagic and 2. Ischemic. Some have a transient ischemic attack (known as a TIA or ministroke) which is similar to a stroke except that, with a TIA, the symptoms go away completely within 24 hours.
This is important. People who have a TIA are very likely to have a stroke in the near future.
The cause? Plaque or a build-up of cholesterol containing fatty deposits called arteriosclerosis in the blood vessel walls which can cause little, if any, blood to flow past. Many issues including high cholesterol and high blood pressure cause plaques. [very scary]
The good news, according to the Mayo Clinic, is that strokes can be treated and prevented, and many fewer Americans now die of stroke than was the case even 15 years ago. Better control of major stroke risk factors — high blood pressure, smoking and high cholesterol — is likely responsible for the decline.
Like a heart attack, stroke is a medical emergency. You do not wait or hesitate to call for emergency medical help. Fast treatment makes a big difference in outcome for someone having a stroke.
This is all part of health care for us humans, but as the years pass and senior life approaches, the body reminds us that it is aging. Be active. Be aware. Take care of yourself.
That's all I have to say about that.