As the traditional Chinese New Year festival is approaching, you are advised not to eat excessively and to pay particular attention to dietary hygiene in order to maintain a relaxed mood and good health during the festival. The Chinese New Year is also a period of high incidence of cerebrovascular accidents, any rapid fluctuations in blood pressure or changes in blood supply to the brain can trigger a stroke for various reasons, which can be broadly summarized as follows
(1) Emotional excitement (refers to anger, excitement, anxiety, sadness, fear, fright, etc.).
(2) Dietary disorders (overeating, alcohol addiction).
(3) Over-exercise, over-exertion, over-exertion.
(4) Sudden changes in climate, especially in seasons and areas where the temperature suddenly decreases, increase the incidence of stroke.
(5) Constipation and dryness of the stool, which must be removed by force.
(6) Improper administration of antihypertensive drugs (e.g., improper administration of antihypertensive drugs, resulting in blood pressure that does not drop or drops too low).
(7) The elderly suddenly sit up when getting up.
(8) Pregnancy, oral contraceptive pills.
All of these triggers are associated with fluctuations in blood pressure and atherosclerosis. Therefore, effective measures should be taken to avoid or eliminate these triggers as much as possible to help prevent strokes. Stroke patients usually have an aura before the onset of stroke. The aura signs of stroke manifest in a variety of ways and can be broadly classified into 6 categories.
(1) Motor malfunction, which may be manifested by sudden distortion of the mouth, drooling, difficulty in talking, slurred speech, aphasia or slurred speech.
(2) Sudden onset of headache, dizziness, blackness or blurred vision, recurrent episodes of slurred speech, headache fixed on one side with numbness and weakness of the lateral limbs, often indicating cerebral hemorrhage or subarachnoid hemorrhage.
(3) Yawning, always wanting to sleep, drowsiness all day long, transient loss of consciousness and intelligence are signs of cerebral ischemia and hypoxia due to reduced cerebral blood flow.
(4) Sensory impairment: facial numbness, tongue numbness, lip numbness and numbness or foreign body sensation in one limb, sudden blindness, spontaneous pain in limbs.
(5) Sudden and recurrent visual rotation, tinnitus, nausea, vomiting, and inaccuracy in hand-held objects in middle-aged and elderly people, usually lasting for several minutes or ten minutes. This may be a sign of insufficient blood supply to the vertebral basilar artery, plus the persistence of the above symptoms indicates that a serious stroke will occur in this system.
(6) If you have heart disease, such as atrial fibrillation in rheumatic heart disease or atrial fibrillation in coronary heart disease, the embolus in the left atrium will be easily dislodged and enter the cerebral artery with the blood flow and blockage of cerebral blood vessels will occur, which we call cerebral embolism.
People who have the above-mentioned aura must be highly alert and seek medical attention in time. The prognosis of the patient can be influenced by the correct treatment by the family, so it is important to have some knowledge of stroke first aid.
a) Stay calm, contact a physician or ambulance quickly, seek medical attention as soon as possible, and send to a nearby hospital for resuscitation if conditions permit, but avoid long-distance transport.
b) Master the correct way to carry the patient, do not rush to pick up the patient, two to three people should lay the patient flat on the bed at the same time, slightly elevate the head to avoid large shocks.
c) Turn the patient’s head to the side, unbutton the clothes, and remove the dentures, if any. If the patient is in a coma, the patient should be made to lie on his side to facilitate the automatic flow of oral contents, avoid lying on his back to block the airway and prevent asphyxia.
d) As the patient is unconscious, most of them have urinary incontinence, so they should prepare clothes and pants and urinary appliances.