Overview
When a person has a stroke, this is a life altering condition that is serious. A stroke is when the blood supply to the person’s brain is cut off, thus there is damage happening due to this blood loss. This is why when a stroke is suspected, a person should be sure that they are getting the stroke victim medical attention to reduce the chances of having life altering ramifications from this.
Symptoms and Signs of a Stroke
In order to truly know what you are looking at, and whether this is a medical emergency, you want to ensure that you know what the signs and symptoms are of a stroke. Main symptoms are often remembered as FAST: Face-Arms-Speech-Time.
- Face: the person may have their face dropping slightly on one side, they may be unable to smoke or keep one eye open.
- Arms: Those who have a stroke often cannot lift both arms and keep them in the air due to the numbness and weakness
- Speech: The speech is often slurred or garbled. They may look as though they cannot speak even though they are awake.
- Time: If you see any or just a few of these symptoms, you need to call emergency personnel immediately.
Causes of Strokes
The brain needs oxygen in order to survive and to perform properly. When the oxygen is deprived, the brain does being to die. This can lead to the person have a permanent disability, injury to the brain or even deal. So why do this happen? There are two main causes:
- Ischaemia: This happens when a blood clot is to blame for the blood supply stopping, this accounts for 85% of the cases of strokes.
- Haemorrhagic: This happens when the blood vessels that supply the brain burst.
There is also a transient ischaemic attack otherwise known as TIA that needs to be remembered as well. These are mini-strokes that can last a few minutes to a few hours. These mini-strokes could be a sign that a major stroke is going to happen.
Risk Factors
There are around 110,000 people in the UK who have strokes, and it is considered the third largest cause of death. The brain injuries that happen as a result of a stroke are the leading cause of disability in people. There are several risk factors that are out there. In most cases, strokes happen in those who are older, though they can happen at any age. In addition, those who are Asian, Caribbean or African tend to have a higher chance of having a stroke. The reason for this is that they often have a genetic predisposition to have a higher blood pressure. Factors that you control that can lead to a stroke are smoking, being overweight, not performing any exercise, and having a poor diet.