How families of stroke patients can recognize post-stroke cognitive impairment

  I often have patients’ families complain to me: “My dad has a big temper since his brain attack, he loses his temper and often forgets to take his medication, and several times he says I stole his bank card”, there are many examples above. What is post-stroke cognitive impairment (PSCI)?  First, in 1985, loeb proposed the concept of vascular dementia, which refers to acquired intellectual impairment after cerebrovascular disease, including ischemic disease and hemorrhagic disease, {according to the 1995 classification of cerebral vascular disease,1 transient ischemic attack (internal carotid artery + vertebrobasilar system)2 Stroke (subarachnoid hemorrhage + cerebral hemorrhage + cerebral infarction (atherosclerotic thrombotic cerebral infarction + cerebral embolism + lacunar cerebral infarction + hemorrhagic cerebral infarction + asymptomatic cerebral infarction + others))3 Insufficient blood supply to the vertebrobasilar artery 4 Cerebrovascular dementia 5 Hypertensive encephalopathy 6 Intracranial aneurysm 7 Intracranial vascular malformation 8 Cerebral arteritis 9 Other arterial diseases 10 Intracranial venous disease venous sinus, cerebral venous thrombosis formation.} The above cerebrovascular diseases are all risk factors for VaD, later experts in the clinic found that not all patients have so obvious cognitive impairment (dementia), some have only single domain cognitive impairment, roughly like this: Single domain cognitive impairment ————– “Multi-domain cognitive impairment ———– “Mild cognitive impairment —– ——-” vascular dementia.  Second, what is cognition? Some patients from rural areas describe patients with post-stroke cognitive impairment as “dumb”. The brain is not only the life center of the human body, but also the center of higher functions, such as language, memory, mental, emotional, and learning. The human brain is involved in a wide range of cognitive functions, including: learning, memory, language, movement, thinking, creativity, spirituality, emotion, etc. Cognitive impairment is the impairment of all of the above, such as memory impairment – impairment of recent memory (can’t remember recent events, but remember clearly what happened before illness), procedural memory (such as what you used to do now (e.g., you don’t know how to do something now), declarative memory (e.g., you don’t know how to introduce yourself). Impairment of language —- (manifested as a lack of fluency in speech, not answering questions, such as knowing it is an apple, but not being able to say it, knowing it is a pen, but not being able to say it, needing a prompt from the family: it is for writing, or the patient says it is for writing, etc., or saying something illogical, incoherent and disorganized, such as “my family eats me at dinner at night (“). Mental, emotional, thinking ——– (e.g. playing with excitement and noise at night, sleeping during the day, referring to the child as his wife, unable to remember the relationship of family members, saying that the child stole his bank card, etc.).  Finally, vascular cognitive impairment tends to worsen with time and eventually develop bit vascular dementia, fortunately. He is is currently the only dementia that can be prevented and his vascular risk factors at the same time can be prevented and controlled. Risk factors just vary from individual to individual, such as hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, stroke, age, family history of dementia, etc. are their risk factors. In view of this, our department has been engaged in the research of vascular cognitive impairment for many years and has accumulated rich clinical experience. This medicine has been clinically applied for many years and has been well received by patients. It is also an in-house preparation of our hospital, supported by the innovation project of Kang Yuan Pharmaceutical, and has formed a complete diagnosis and treatment system and program for the prevention and treatment of vascular cognitive impairment, and has participated in academic exchange activities at home and abroad, and has sent postgraduates and doctors of the department to Beijing to study the latest diagnosis and treatment technology, further improving the diagnosis and treatment level.