Stroke - A Debilitating Brain Injury
Strokes are a type of debilitating brain injury caused by either an interruption of the blood supply to part of the brain or the rupturing of a blood vessel spilling blood into the surrounding brain cells. Brain cells are extremely sensitive and can die when they no longer receive oxygen and nutrients from the blood. They can also die when there is sudden bleeding into or around the brain.
The symptoms of strokes are varied but generally easy to spot. They include a sudden numbness or weakness, particularly effecting one side of the body; confusion; trouble speaking or understanding speech; trouble seeing in one or both eyes; trouble walking, dizziness, or loss of balance or coordination; and severe headaches with no known cause.
There are two general types of strokes. They are named by their cause. There are ischemic strokes, which are caused by a blockage of a blood vessel supplying the brain, and hemorrhagic strokes, which are consist of bleeding into or around the brain.
When a stroke occurs, treatment is divided into three stages. The first stage is prevention. Prevention focuses on treating an individual's underlying risk factors. Risk factors include hypertension, atrial fibrillation, and diabetes. Acute therapy attempts to stop a stroke while it is happening. It does this by dissolving the blood clot or stopping any hemorrhaging.
The second stage is therapy immediately after the stroke. This portion of treatment generally tries to help an individual get as close to normal as possible as quickly as possible. If surgery to repair a burst blood vessel is needed, it is done here.
The last stage is post-stroke rehabilitation. Because of a stroke's potentially debilitating effects, this is frequently the most difficult stage. This part helps people overcome disabilities that are the result of any stroke damage. One common disability that post-stroke rehabilitation helps individuals overcome is hemiplegia.
Hemiplegia is the paralysis of one side of the body. It generally affects the side of the body opposite to the side of the brain where the stroke occurred. This means that if the stroke occurs on the right side of the brain, the left side of the body is more likely to be affected. Hemiparesis, or one-sided weakness, is another common disability.
Whenever an individual experiences one stroke, there is a 25% likeliness that he or she will experience another stroke in the future. Medication or drug therapy is the most common approach to preventing a second stroke. These drugs are generally anthrombiotics, such as anti-platelet agents or anticoagulants, or thrombolytics.
While strokes may be debilitating, they are not the only type of brain injury with devastating effects. For more information concerning brain injuries, please visit http://www.traumatic-braininjurylawyers.com/article_tbi_silent_epidemic.aspx.
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